The White House Wanted To Give $0 To Tribes In The $2 Trillion Stimulus Bill
Senate Republicans also worked to scale back direct relief for Native Americans.
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By Jennifer Bendery
Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, left, and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows step out of a meeting as the Senate negot
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, left, and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows step out of a meeting as the Senate negotiated a coronavirus relief bill in March.
WASHINGTON ― In the end, tribes got about $10 billion in the emergency $2 trillion stimulus bill that President Donald Trump signed into law last Friday.
But if the White House had its way, tribes wouldn’t have gotten a penny in direct relief, according to three Senate Democratic aides familiar with negotiations on the bill. And if Senate Republicans had their way, tribes would have gotten way less than they got.
The National Congress of American Indians, the largest organization representing the interests of tribal governments and communities, told Congress in mid-March that the nation’s 574 tribes would need at least $20 billion in direct federal relief to stem job losses and economic instability caused by the coronavirus pandemic. When the Senate and White House began talks on the stimulus, Democrats pushed for creating a $200 billion stabilization fund to provide direct aid to local and state governments. Of that $200 billion, $20 billion should go to tribal governments, they proposed.
The White House said no to both ― the fund itself, and tribes getting any direct relief.
When Democrats held their ground, the White House relented and agreed to create the stabilization fund, but only if it was capped at $150 billion and didn’t give money to tribes. Senate Republicans countered with capping the fund at $150 billion and giving tribes $2 billion, but only if that money came from a separate, supplemental appropriations bill being rolled into the stimulus. Democrats pushed back again, saying that tribes needed direct financial relief as well as increased annual appropriations to deal with the coronavirus. The direct relief would go toward things that needed immediate action, like tribal health care systems already struggling financially.
