Posted on 04/15/2012 11:22:31 AM PDT by Nachum
The Obama administration has reached a settlement with more than 40 Indian tribes to resolve claims of mismanaged funds by the Department of the Interior.
After 22 months of negotiation, the U.S. Department of Justice agreed with tribal representatives for the government to pay more than $1 billion to 41 tribes.
Attorney General Eric Holder said the settlements “fairly and honorably resolve historical grievances over the accounting and management of tribal trust funds, trust lands and other non-monetary trust resources that, for far too long, have been a source of conflict between Indian tribes and the United States.” The settlement does not have to be approved by Congress because it comes out of the Treasury Department’s Judgment Fund.
The Interior Department became involved through its management of about 56 million acres of trust lands for federally-recognized tribes as well as 100,000 leases on these lands for uses ranging from timber harvesting to farming to oil and gas extraction.
(Excerpt) Read more at allgov.com ...
Red brothers say, “White man speak with forked tongue.”
This “dispute” e.g. robbery has existed over 100 years.
Leni
The government mismanages everyone’s funds. When do the rest of us get paid?
Is this the final settlement? Does this satisfy all past historical claims of mistreatment? Or will we be doing this all over again in about 4 years? And again a few years after that?
The list, Ping
Let me know if you would like to be on or off the ping list
Obama-money is fiat...
Good for the natives, they were truly getting ripped off, as usual. I hope this agreement includes controls on the federal government so it doesn’t continue.
How many times we’re going to do this? This money should be coming out of the pockets of the bureaucrats who “mismanaged” the “funds”, NOT THE POCKETS OF THE TAXPAYERS. The taxpayers cannot always be held responsible for the incompetence and corruption of government bureaucrats. I think it’s time for the U.S. taxpayers to sue the government for all of these “sovereign nations” they are propping up with OUR tax dollars.
Reparations.
AMEN
Next, reparations for blacks.. Holder can’t spend it fast enough.. The American economy still manages to survive IN SPITE OF THOSE WITHIN WHO SEEK TO OVERWHELM AND COLLAPSE IT. FUEH!
You fellows are on the mark.
What happened here is that tribal land and trust-fund administration was gradually turned over from regular (mostly white, it is true) civil service bureaucrats to tribal bureaucrats who either couldn’t or didn’t manage the accounts openly and honestly...so all the federal and private dollars that were poured into tribal accounts over the past 30 years simply can’t be accounted for.
There are no records, there is no paper trail, yet the money has all been spent, including some good part of it that went to the purposes it was intended to go to.
Instead of digging in and finding the fraud and incompetence and punishing those responsible, the Justice Department has determined (once again) to turn to the taxpayers to pay and repay for mistakes & crimes committed by federal employees.
Same old waste and corruption, same old remedy. Give give give ‘em more.
Just a continuation of the dem’s “buy a vote” program.
Think of it like this: Say you have a million dollars in your account at your bank and then you find out that it is missing but the bank has no idea where it went. Now the Federal Reserve reimburses you the million dollars. That makes you guilty of nothing no matter what color or race you are.
So the Justice Department has a slush fund containing more than $1B. How is this created? Would someone please tell me again why exactly it is that we are paying the people in Congress. Are they the ones who give this money to departments like this one with no accountability for it whatsoever?
“What happened here is that tribal land and trust-fund administration was gradually turned over from regular (mostly white, it is true) civil service bureaucrats to tribal bureaucrats who either couldn’t or didn’t manage the accounts openly and honestly...so all the federal and private dollars that were poured into tribal accounts over the past 30 years simply can’t be accounted for.”
Wrongo bongo. What happened transpired from longer back than just 30 years ago, through multiple administrations, heads of the trust and bureaucrats, ‘white’ and otherwise.
What happened was the ‘accounting sytem’ was essentially no system at all - no standard forms, no standard recoring of actions, no standard procedures and no standards about record keeping; the judges, in all these cases have said the ‘evidence’ (the record) when found represented no standards and in the main was essentially missing.
The best estimates of ‘the record’ has been inferred from the records of the oil/gas/mining interests (that were given leases on triba; lands) regarding what THEY received, and the tribes bank records of what THEY recieved.
The sums ARE large and if Congress wants to prevent this in the future they will prioritize the Interior department budget so that it cannot be said the resources are not there to fix the problem and also demand reports to Congress of audits that show it is and at some point finally has been fixed.
“Would someone please tell me again why exactly it is that we are paying the people in Congress.”
There is no good reason, there is only corruption.
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