Living with a toxic waste site in your backyard has its advantages. For a place like Benton County this means more stimulus money. Benton county received $2 billion in stimulus money while Elkhart county in Indiana only received $49 million. These two counties are very similar to each other, their populations are with 30,000 of the other, they are both dependent on single sectors; Hanford in Benton county and RV manufacturing in Elkhart. Cost of living are similar in both places, they both are more than 90% white and tend to vote republican. So why is there such a huge discrepancy between the stimulus money each received? Well, Benton county had plenty of “shovel ready” projects while Elkhart was dependent on RV manufacturing which has taken a huge hit in this economy.

Tagged as: 99301, 99320, 99323, 99337, 99353, Benton County, Hanford, msnbc, stimulus money, tri cities