Government at the Brink, by Fred Thompson: on Civil Rights

No end in sight to problems with Indian Trust Funds

The Interior Department’s worst problems include violating the trust of Indians. The Department is legally obligated to ensure that American Indian resources and lands are properly managed, protected, and conserved. As trustee for the tribes, they manage $3 billion on the tribes’ behalf. However, the Department “cannot assure trust account holders that their balances are accurate or that their assets are being properly managed.” As far back as 1993, GAO wrote, “Over the years, countless audit reports and internal studies have cited a litany of serious problems in [the Bureau of Indian Affairs’] oversight of these accounts.“ Among the problems were ”missing lease and accounting records; and the inability to verify that all earned revenues were collected and disbursed to the proper party.“ Unfortunately, there is no end in sight to the problems with the Indian Trust Funds. The Bureau of Indian Affairs wrote in 2001 that ”trust reform is slowly, but surely imploding at this point in time.“ Source: Government at the Brink, by Fred Thompson, Vol.2, p. 62-63 Jun 3, 2001

The above quotations are from Government at the Brink: The Root Causes of Government Waste and Mismanagement, by Fred Thompson. Click here for definitions & background information on Civil Rights. Click here for other issues (main summary page). Click here for more quotes by Fred Thompson on Civil Rights.
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