Opinion | Politics

Mark Trahant: Indian Country set to feel pain with sequester





"In Congress there is much talk of “pain” ahead. We are three weeks away from the sequester and about a month away from the expiration of the budget, last year’s Continuing Resolution. Indian Country will be the first to feel that pain with lost jobs or insufficient health care dollars.

Last weekend on ABC’s This Week, Rep. Tom Cole, R-Oklahoma, said that he thought the sequester was inevitable. The best hope was that it would then be resolved three weeks later when Congress will have to cobble some sort of budget together (or the government will shut down). Another Oklahoma Republican, Sen. Tom Coburn, said Wednesday morning that the pain of sequester will change minds.

And to make it more complicated there are no longer two parties in this dance. Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul gave the Tea Party response. He said the sequester doesn’t go far enough. “Not only should the sequester stand; many pundits say the sequester really needs to be at least $4 trillion to avoid another downgrade of America’s credit rating.”

That is the Republican strategy at this point: Go ahead and begin the sequester. Then when all hell breaks loose, negotiate."

Get the Story:
State of the Union: A North Star that guides the country toward a growing economy (Mark Trahant 2/13)

Related Stories:
Mark Trahant: Indian Country loses with budget sequestration (2/11)
Mark Trahant: Back and forth on a deal to avoid sequestration (2/8)
Mark Trahant: Saving money by moving to cashless society (2/4)
Mark Trahant: Government shrinking even without sequester (1/31)
Mark Trahant: Sequester will tear apart tribal college funding (1/30)
Mark Trahant: Medicaid will help Indian health system grow (1/29)
Mark Trahant: Indian Health Service faces devastating cuts (1/28)
Mark Trahant: Senate is best hope for Indian Country budget (1/24)
Mark Trahant: House Republicans shuffling the deck on debt (1/23)
Mark Trahant: Budget lessons from the Indian health system (1/22)
Mark Trahant: Republicans and old debts to Native Americans (1/18)
Mark Trahant: Republicans versus Republicans on budget talks (1/17)
Mark Trahant: Our big bad ugly budget problems can be fixed (1/16)
Mark Trahant: Why the fight over debt limit matters so much (1/15)
Mark Trahant: Counting on tribes to bail out the government (1/14)
Mark Trahant: Tribal leaders should prepare for shrinking budgets (1/7)
Mark Trahant: Deal makes another fiscal cliff debate inevitable (1/2)

Join the Conversation