Politico's Ben Smith gets Obama AIDS hecklers story right

The budget plans of the “other side” – i.e. the Boehner plan of a 20 percent across the board cut – would mean a more than $1.3 billion cut to our global HIV/AIDS programs. The President, on the other hand, put forward increases for PEPFAR in both his FY 2010 and FY 2011 budgets. In fact, the FY 2011 request is the largest request to date in a President’s Budget, and the program is slated to increase in the years ahead. Moreover, the $63 billion Global Health Initiative is new, integrated approach to HIV/AIDS and other diseases that – based on lives saved and lengthened – will have a huge impact.

Your point about the activist community’s view accurately characterizes how they see it, but let’s put it in context: the President instituted a three-year freeze on non-security discretionary spending, yet still went forward with this funding.