$3 Billion of U.S. stimulus to greet American Indians

By siliconindia   |   Friday, 30 January 2009, 01:09 IST   |    7 Comments
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$3 Billion of U.S. stimulus to greet American Indians
Washington: The economic stimulus from the Obama administration will become a thing to rejoice for all American Indians, as they are expected to gain around $3 billion from the stimulus. The Senate Appropriations Committee included $2.8 billion for Indian tribes in its portion of the nearly $900 billion bill, and a House version to be voted on Wednesday includes a similar amount. Under the incentive it includes hundreds of millions of dollars for schools, health clinics, roads, law enforcement and water projects. Calling the bill a "once in a lifetime opportunity" for tribes, Dante Desiderio, an economic development policy Specialist at the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) lobbied for the cash. Some of the nation's poorest communities expect to rebuild roads, improve health care and boost employment that has lagged behind the rest of the country for decades. The real per-capita income of Indians living on reservations is still less than half the national average, unemployment is twice that of the rest of the country, and eight of the 10 poorest counties in the U.S. are on reservations, as per a report of NCAI. The tribes took the stimulus plans as an opportunity to boost their economies.

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