Bush Seeks Cuts in Vital Indian Programs

Bush Seeks to Cut Vital Indian Programs
By Kevin Abourezk

You couldn't hardly have scripted a more insulting response to last week's State of Indian Nations Address.

On Monday, President George W. Bush presented his budget for fiscal year 2009, which begins Oct. 1. In the final budget of his presidency, Bush proposed serious cuts in federal spending to many programs vital to Indian Country.

In his annual address last Thursday, President Joe Garcia of the National Congress of American Indians spoke about the need for economic development, health care reform, public safety funds and education reform for Indian Country.

"Through the eyes of a child, we see too much hurt, and regret, and loss," he said. "But through our own eyes, we can see opportunity, find answers and make lives better."

So it came as a slap in the face when Bush's budget Monday proposed cuts to many Indian programs, including:

• The Bureau of Indian Affairs education construction fund, which would be slashed by $177 million less than Congress appropriated for it this year, if Bush has his way. His budget sets aside just $140 million for that fund.

• The Indian Health Service's Urban Indian Health Program, which serves Indians in South Dakota communities like Sioux Falls and Pierre, would not be funded, and likely be eliminated, under Bush's proposed budget. Congress set aside $35 million for the program this fiscal year.

• The Indian Health Facilities fund, which would see a $22 million decrease under Bush's proposed budget and receive just $362 million for the next fiscal year. That account supports construction, repair and improvement of Indian Health Services facilities.

• Three Department of Justice programs that service Indian Country, which would be zeroed out under Bush's plan. Those programs provide for incarceration on tribal lands, tribal courts and grants for tribes. Congress provided $33 million for the programs for the current fiscal year.

• Two U.S. Department of Education programs that provide financial support to tribal colleges, universities and technical institutes would see none of the more than $30 million that Congress appropriated to them this fiscal year under Bush's budget.

• The Native American Housing Block Grants program, which Congress funded for $681 million this fiscal year, would see $54 million less under the president's budget.

Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., sounded the alarm Monday about Bush's proposed cuts to Indian programs.

"The President's budget ... ignores the treaty and trust responsibility of the federal government," the senator said in a news release. "I will use my seat on the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee to work to restore these programs this year."

While Bush has never been considered a friend to Indian Country, it's difficult to recall a time when the president has so blatantly shown his disdain for Native people as he has in recent weeks.

Coupled with his threatened veto of the Indian Health Care Improvement Act last month, Bush's proposed budget cuts can be seen as nothing less than evidence of an Indian fighter displaying his true nature.

There was one project familiar to Indian people for which Bush proposed increased funding.
Under his budget, the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump in Nevada would see an additional $108 million in funding for the next fiscal year. Long opposed by tribes, the dump's elevated status in the Bush budget plan further demonstrates the president's lack of sensitivity to tribal concerns.

On the bright side, the president's budget is likely to see drastic changes before both Democratic-controlled Houses of Congress pass it.

And senators and congressional leaders friendly to Indians, like Johnson, already have vowed to seek fewer cuts to much needed social programs.

Kevin Abourezk, Oglala Lakota, is a reporter and editor at the Lincoln (Neb.) Journal Star. He is a reznet assignment editor and teaches reporting at the Freedom Forum's American Indian Journalism Institute.

Please, if you live in a state that is having a primary election today - go out and vote!!!

Important Victory in Cobell Litigation

Judge calls Cobell historical accounting 'impossible'

Yesterday, Judge James Robertson ruled that a government accounting is impossible after hearing arguments in a ten day trial last next October. After 11 years of litigation in the courts and debate in Congress, Judge Robertson on Wednesday declared a historical accounting of the Indian trust "impossible." Robertson took over the case after Judge Royce Lamberth was removed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in July 2006, which said he had lost his objectivity.

The government had asked that Lamberth be replaced after the Judge Lamberth lambasted the Interior Department, writing in a decision that labelled the Department of Interior "is a dinosaur _ the morally and culturally oblivious hand-me-down of a disgracefully racist and imperialist government that should have been buried a century ago."

In his decision, Robertson detailed the extensive background of the case, saying that it would "stretch the limits of understatement" to say the case's history has been exhaustively chronicled in district court. He noted there are 3,504 entries on the case's docket and 10 circuit judges have been engaged in the case. His opinion will have the shorthand of "Cobell XX," he noted.

In a 165-page decision, Judge James Robertson said the Interior Department is "unable to perform an adequate accounting" of the Individual Indian Money (IIM) trust. The government "has not" and "cannot" cure its breach of trust to hundreds of thousands of Indian beneficiaries who have never been told how much money they are owed for the use of their land, he wrote."

Indeed, it is now clear that completion of the required accounting is an impossible task," said Robertson, who describe the breach of trust as "irreparable."

The upshot of this historic decision is to finally establish a powerful place from which Native plaintiffs may negotiate with the federal government who has been one of the most egregious foot-dragging defendents in the history of all litigation. The Cobell Lawsuit (AKA the Trust Fund Litigation) is a class action lawsuit filed in 1996 by Elouise Cobell on behalf of herself and thousands of other similarly situated Natives across America which asked that the federal government account for all outstanding Individual Indian Money funds that have been "held in trust" or otherwise (mis)managed under the guise of the "Trust Responsibility" established through treaties and other agreements with Indian people.

"This is a great day in Indian Country," Cobell said yesterday. "We've argued for over ten years that the government is unable to fulfill its duty to render an adequate historical accounting, much less redress the historical wrongs heaped upon the individual Indian trust beneficiaries."

"Instead of truthfully seeking to remedy the government's admitted historical mismanagement, the government elected to fight plaintiffs every step of the way," she said. "Judge Robertson has settled the debate in favor of plaintiffs and found that an adequate historical accounting is, in fact, impossible."

The government proposed paying $7 billion partly to settle the Cobell lawsuit in March 2007, but that was rejected by the plaintiffs, who estimate the government's liability could exceed $100 billion. The Interior Department estimates that it has spent $127 million on its accounting in the past five years.

Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, said Wednesday that he hopes the judge's decision is a catalyst for a settlement."Ultimately the question is going to be for the administration and the Justice Department, are they willing to settle for all of these years of mismanagement," he said.

Judge Hits Gov't on Indian Money Delay (Washington Post, January 30, 2008)

For complete access to all of the documents filed in over eleven years of litigation, please visit: Indian Trust: Cobell v. Kempthorne

Pioneer Editorial: Judge gives the Dickens to Interior (Bemidji Pioneer, January 31, 2008)

New Oglala Sioux Nation Web Site Goes Online

Hello NPLCers,
Here's a new web site that is definitely worth a look: www.oglala-sioux-tribe.org. Check it out and congratulations to the Oglala Sioux Nation for posting this excellent resource.
Cheers,
Faye Hadley