The Trump administration followed through with threats to use the shutdown as an opportunity to slash federal programs. While some government-run programs for Indian Country are insulated from the lapse in funding, there is growing bipartisan concern that Native American nations will see cuts to critical programs.
The government is responsible for providing the nearly 600 federally recognized tribes with key services, including from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Indian Health Service and the Bureau of Indian Education. Congress secured advance appropriations for IHS, so funds are still able to flow there. But about a third of the staff at the BIA is currently furloughed, and tribal programs are strained by the shutdown.
Lawmakers worry that Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought will attempt to cut tribal programs, despite reassurances.
Sen. Ben Ray Luján, who sits on the Indian Affairs Committee, pointed to the administration’s previous efforts to cut or hold funding, including attempts to rescind funds for tribal radio stations and withhold appropriated money for the Community Development Financial Institutions, which contains assistance for Native businesses and community development.
“He’s already doing it. He did this before the shutdown,” Luján said of Vought. “It’s clear what he’s going to do. I don’t know why he would start being more polite.”
“There’s a lot of concern in Indian Country that that would be the case,” Sen. Tina Smith, a Minnesota Democrat on the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, told NOTUS of a Trump administration effort to cut funding.
“It’s worrisome,” she added.
Some Republicans who work on tribal affairs or represent states with higher numbers of Native Americans did not speculate about cuts, including House Appropriations Committee Chair Tom Cole, one of the only Native American tribal citizens in Congress. His state of Oklahoma is home to 39 federally recognized tribal nations.
“I’ll wait and see what they do and comment on what they do, but look, they’re doing their job at this point, which they have to manage an emergency,” Cole said of OMB in early October.
Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, chair of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, said it’s “good” that broader layoffs floated toward the beginning of the shutdown “haven’t materialized,” but the possibility of cuts from OMB is “unsettling.” Tribal programs may have some immunity from those cuts, she said, but not enough to leave her unconcerned. (Vought announced Wednesday that he expected up to 10,000 layoffs throughout the federal government during the shutdown).
“I think we have been somewhat protected within advance appropriations within IHS, but I worry about loss of staff,” Murkowski, who represents Alaska, said last week.
OMB did not respond to NOTUS’ questions about if it is considering or planning cuts to tribal programs during the shutdown.
IHS did not have advanced appropriations during the 35-day partial shutdown beginning in 2018, and the funds supposed to flow from the Department of Interior were not yet approved. This held up health services in Indian Country, with staff remaining unpaid and some programs being suspended. Tribes across the country were stretched thin in other ways. Tribal citizens went unpaid for many jobs funded by the federal government.
The fear of cuts has worried tribes since the beginning of the shutdown, and they had been preparing to fend off consequences of the shutdown for weeks. Chuck Hoskin Jr., principal chief of the over 450,000-member Cherokee Nation, issued a statement on Oct. 1 calling on the administration to “honor the government’s Treaty and Trust responsibilities, avoid needless cuts to Tribal programs and personnel.”
Like Murkowski, Sen. Cynthia Lummis, a Wyoming Republican, speculated that tribes may have more of a shield due to their government-to-government relationship with the United States. Lummis said Vought cutting tribal programs during the shutdown is “somewhat unlikely.”
“The sovereign nation status of tribal governments give them a different type of consideration,” Lummis said Thursday.
Even if the administration does not pursue cuts or layoffs, some tribes see the shutdown as a broken promise.
“Our ancestors ceded vast homelands to the United States in exchange for promises, ratified by Congress, that the federal government would provide for the health, education, and welfare of our people. Those commitments were not acts of charity; they are legally binding obligations. When the government shuts down, those treaty promises are broken,” Kathleen Wooden Knife, president of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe of South Dakota, said in a statement.
“Each shutdown underscores a painful truth: the United States cannot continue to benefit from the land taken under treaty while failing to honor the commitments made in return,” Wooden Knife said.