Patrick Kennedy: “I rise today as vice- chairman of the Native American Caucus to express my support for the Kildee-Hayworth amendment…”

“I rise today as vice- chairman of the Native American Caucus to express my support for the Kildee-Hayworth amendment, and encourage my colleagues to strike this measure from the bill. Mr. Chairman, let me say that since I was first elected to Congress, I have strongly supported efforts that would seek to expose the long history and failure of this country to recognize the deep poverty within Native American country. I applaud the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) for continuing to expose that. But the answer is not to take away the one vehicle that so many tribes have used to even take themselves out of poverty. The answer is, we need to put more money into Indian health services, more money into education, more money into Indian law enforcement. These are the answers. Until we have those answers, we do not pull the leg out of the stool that is the one thing that many Native American tribes are standing on. That happens to be gaming. {time} 1315”