More than 100 people gathered at the south steps of the Texas Capitol Saturday for the Rally for Our Lives to express frustration over the deep budget cuts facing Central Texas AIDS agencies. Many held aloft placards decrying the Texas Department of Health's recent decision to reduce spending for AIDS prevention and treatment programs while narrowing the focus on who will be helped. State officials say the cuts are part of a federally required attempt to help those most in need, but people at the rally weren't buying it.

The rally preceded Sunday's 15th annual AIDS Walk Austin, which commemorated the 1987 founding of AIDS Services of Austin, the area's oldest and largest prevention and treatment group. At Saturday's rally, speakers representing ASA and ALLGO Informe-SIDA, which targets Austin Hispanics, said the lives of thousands of low-income Central Texans are threatened because they will no longer be assisted in paying for AIDS medications.

Texas ranks fourth in AIDS cases in the United States, with 57,199 as of December 2001. That year, Texas had 2,981 new cases of the disease.

The state budget cuts will injure the programs of both ASA and ALLGO Informe-SIDA and could force some other groups to close entirely, speakers said. Community Action Inc. of San Marcos, which got $66,000 for its work this year, will receive nothing in 2003. Health Department administrators say the changes are needed to focus resources in areas of the state with the highest rates of infection, such as the metro areas of Dallas and Houston.

For the AIDS groups at the rally, the solution was to increase the state's $1 million in prevention funding, which is matched by $9 million in federal money. They said the state's share has not grown in a decade. They also want the Legislature to approve an additional $34 million to help low-income Texans pay for HIV/AIDS treatment.

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