Opinion: HUD gives away taxpayer money to wealthy tribes

Monday, May 7, 2012  

"Last week the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced its giveaway of taxpayer monies — calling them “competitive grants” — in the amount of $56 million to “tribal communities” around the country, saying that the funds will be used to “develop viable communities including rehabilitating housing or building new homes or to purchase land to support new housing construction.”

HUD added that this free taxpayer money:

can also be used [by the tribes] to build infrastructure such as roads, water and sewer facilities…

[The tribes may] use the grants to establish commercial, industrial and agricultural projects … including shopping centers, manufacturing plants, restaurants or convenience stores and gas stations.

In Wisconsin four separate grants, $600,000 each, were given to the Ho-Chunk Nation, the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians, the Saint Croix Tribe of Chippewa Indians, and the Oneida Tribe of Indians. Each tribe had to compete to get a place at the federal trough, coming up with various ways to spend the free money headed their way. These “competitive” grants were then given to the tribes that dreamed up the most outrageous ways of spending the money."

Get the Story:
Bob Adelmann: HUD Gives Taxpayer Funds to Rich Indian Tribes (The New American 5/7)