AIDS Clinics May Close

Below are excerpts from a Bill Clinton interview on Larry King, Feb 17, 2009





KING: Now, how is this economic crisis going to affect that and your other various things?

CLINTON: Well, so far, it has not had an adverse effect on the Global Initiative. It has had a very adverse effect on my health and economic development programs, and my climate change programs. Because after my library was built, where Americans were very generous to me at all levels, since then most of the contributions I get are 100 dollars or less, or a half a million or more. Millions and millions and millions of dollars disappeared from that upper category through no fault of their own.So I had saved some money for a little endowment, and I spent about half of it last year to keep all of our clinics open, and to keep most of our global warming work going, because I didn't want any children to die because of the economic downturn. But this year, I have got to go out and probably get another 200,000 or 300,000 people to give me 100 dollars or less, and then get more people to give money at the 500 to 1,000, 1,500 dollar category. And if I don't do it, I won't be able to continue my operations.KING: Do you think any giving might be hard?CLINTON: Well, no, ironically, here is what I think is going to happen. I think that most Americans know they're still better off than most people who ever lived. And a lot of people around the world feel that way. So they will continue to give some money, even if less. What I think is that almost every charitable endeavor will have to do what I'm doing, they'll have to restructure to be more like the recent presidential campaign. You know, in American modern history, the most Internet- intensive, small donor-dominated campaigns ever run, in order, were: first, President Obama's; second, Hillary's; third, Senator McCain."


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