Treaties between the Federal Government and Indian tribes guaranteed certain benefits and programs to Indians, usually in exchange for land, which usually included resources. The Federal Government agreed to provide funding for these benefits and programs. These treaties are contractual obligations.

Neither party to a treaty is to break the treaty unless both parties mutually agree to rescind it. Treaty obligations continue to bind the Federal Government and money for funding its obligations.

The majority political party in the 104th Congress is fanatically trying to transfer amounts from federal funds on up the national economic pyramid to the economic elite at the tip top of that pyramid. The amount of money in circulation down the pyramid is decreasing. Such funding transfers damage the continuation of Indian programs. These transfers damage this area and the state economy of Oklahoma. The state tax payers are not obligated to make-up the amount of money to be transferred away from the Indian programs. The funding is the obligation of the Federal Government.

Elected representatives in Congress, especially in the majority party, yell cut, cut, cut! Yet the money is merely transferred from people programs from the middle-class section of the economic pyramid, and from those beneath the poverty line, to programs and tax breaks for the super rich. These so-called cuts are not taken out of the federal budget.

The Reagan administration did the same thing the 104th Congress is now trying to do. Yet, his administration ended with the largest deficit spending and biggest federal budget in American history. Then Reagan had the audacity to say that, “Big government takes from the needy and gives to the greedy.” But he should know because that is exactly what the Reagan government did.
 
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