Budget
In the coming weeks, we will hear a lot about the budget, the deficit and the need to make hard choices when it comes to federal funding. I agree with that. But the choices also have to be smart choices.
The battle is over, and pundits now stroll to the battlefield and shoot the survivors. I have used this bully pulpit to urge that Indians bloc vote only when threatened as Indians. My own vote turned on threats I perceived to my family. Your mileage may vary.
In their recent letter to Indian Country Today Media Network, Congressmen Ed Markey and Ben Ray Lujan expressed concern that chronically underfunded tribal programs are in jeopardy of damaging further spending reductions.
Luke Russert, son of the late and much-admired journalist Tim Russert, recently referred to Watergate as "the mother of all political scandals." He’s right, given our predilection to add “-gate” when we describe any ser
The budget battles of 2012 struck a blow to key provisions of the Tribal Law and Order Act and although the proposed budget contains increases for some important programs, funding would still remain far lower t
Tribal leaders went to Capitol Hill last week to make the case to protect American Indian and Alaska Native programs from the deep federal spending cuts that are about to hit.
I drove across the Northwest this past weekend. A 1,700-mile trip from Idaho to Seattle, returning via rural roads in Washington, and freeways in Idaho and Montana. Along the route I looked at places and wondered, how will life change during the Era of Contraction?
States and governors just can’t seem to control themselves; they cannot keep their hands out of tribal pockets. The concept that tribal governments have rights and financial needs has eluded them for so long they have become accustomed to ignoring them.
It’s nearly impossible to know when a new political era has begun for certain.
State legislative field hearings were held last week examining whether or not the State will begin the historic process of seeking to amend the New York State Constitution to allow commercialized gambling throughout the State.
President Barack Obama must sell a complex idea to a Congress that prides itself on simplicity.
It sounds reasonable: Why not just cap federal spending? Make every agency operate with the money that’s already there. This notion has common-sense ... yet it is impossible in practice.