Dave Baldridge: Republican budget plan hurts our elderly Indians

Monday, June 25, 2012  

"At Boston's original tea party in 1773, American patriots -- symbolically dressed as Mohawk Indians -- dumped three shiploads of His Majesty's chamomile into Boston Harbor. They couldn't have known that more than two centuries later, another tea party would try to dump Social Security into Boston Harbor as well.

The Republican budget plan devised by Republican Rep. Paul Ryan, beloved by the Tea Party, proposes a draconian future for this landmark program that would hurt all older American and especially American Indians.

Indian elders have average annual incomes of just $2,063 -- about two-thirds the amount of those for other American seniors. More than one of three Indian elders has severe disabilities and can no longer work.

[Last] week, the National Congress of American Indians voted unanimously for a resolution to support Social Security without cutting benefits for recipients. The tribal leaders represent most of the 3.4 million Americans who identify themselves with a tribe."

Get the Story:
Dave Baldridge: American Indians and Social Security (The Native American Times 6/25)