The "Poorest County in America" by Tim Giago

Tim Giago's latest column in the Huffington Post is well worth reading.

Here's a bit of it:

We have to ask ourselves why, after 27 years since the 1980 Census, the Pine Ridge Reservation is still among the top ten poorest counties in America, and why three of the top ten poorest counties are located in South Dakota? What does that say about our elected Congressional delegation?

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know the reasons there is such poverty and what can be done to alleviate it. The lack of jobs, housing and healthcare are three of the main culprits. And how does one go about addressing these ills? First off, you bring economic development to provide jobs and second, you demand that Housing and Urban Development get off of its big fat ass and provide livable housing, and third, you refurbish the Indian Health Care hospitals with adequate funding, improved facilities and more and better doctors. Doesn't this sound like something that can be accomplished in America?

Life expectancy on Pine Ridge, Rosebud, and Crow Creek and on some of the other Indian reservations of the Northern Plains and in some areas of the Southwest is in the 50s. Infant mortality is three times as high as in the rest of America. Diabetes is epidemic in Indian country no thanks to the United States Department of Agriculture for the high starch and sugar- loaded commodities distributed on these reservations for so many years.