7 Bizarre Initiatives From Biden’s $45 Billion Tribal Spending Spree
From decorating a hallway at HHS to promoting ‘Indigenous Knowledge,’ White House spends big on Native projects
Getty Images Benjamin Wilson • December 1, 2022 3:25 pm
The White House hosted its second Tribal Native Summit this week, where it outlined how the Biden administration will spend more than $45 billion for “Tribal communities and Native people.”
“I made a commitment that my administration would prioritize and respect Nation to Nation relationships,” President Joe Biden said Wednesday at the summit, which brought tribal leaders from across the country to Washington, D.C.
More than 20 federal agencies laid out proposals for how this massive sum of money would be spent on Native issues. From attempting to revitalize old tribal languages to putting up new Native-themed decorations at a federal agency, it is unclear how most of the spending spree will improve everyday life in the Native population.
Here are some of the most bizarre ways the Biden administration plans to spend the $45 billion.
1. Decorating a hallway at the Department of Health and Human Services
Employees at the Department of Health and Human Services will soon have “visibility of Tribal Nations as Nation-to-Nation partners” every single day. The agency is set to unveil plans for a new “Hall of Tribal Nations” at its Washington, D.C., headquarters, the White House says.
The hall, set to be complete in the next few months, will be decorated with tribal flags.
2. Revitalizing Native Languages
Americans across the country must be aware of the “crisis of Native language loss” and the “urgency for immediate action” to revitalize lost languages, according to a White House fact sheet.
To address the urgent crisis, the administration promised a 10-Year National Plan on Native Language Revitalization, which will focus first on “establishing a formal policy recognizing the role that the United States government played in erasing Native languages and affirming the need for federal resources and support for Native language revitalization.”
The administration says it wants Native languages integrated back into “mainstream society.” It is still working on identifying how exactly to fund this initiative.
It is unclear which languages the administration wants to integrate. According to the Indigenous Language Institute, there are nearly 200 languages still spoken in the Native population. Three-quarters of the population, however, just speak English.
3. Promoting “Indigenous Knowledge” in Federal Agencies
The White
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