My Page: Mark Trahant

Guest Column

Echo-Hawk’s book ought to retire the entire debate about judicial activism. It has become a conservative article of faith that judges should narrowly follow the law when deciding cases. But Echo-Hawk methodically picks apart that fiction. He shows that even sainted justices, such as John Marshall, invented a legal theory from dust about the doctrine of discovery in Johnson v. M’Intosh. “Marshall claimed that the nation had no choice in how it dealt with the tribes and that the normal rules of international law did not apply,” Echo-Hawk wrote ... “Thus, the normal rules governing the relations between the conqueror and conquered were simply ‘incapable of application’ in the United States. It was the Indians own fault.”

Marshall had a financial stake in the case that would not be permitted under today’s standards. And, Echo-Hawk points out, this was the same justice who at the end of his career became famous for Worcester v. Georgia, where he supported the sovereignty of the Cherokee Nation against the state.

Trahant Reports

Last week President Barack Obama held his first town hall on Twitter. A really great idea and I plunged in with this question:

“#AskObama Indian Cntry’s unemployment rate is unacceptable. Cutting govt jobs will make this situation far worse. What steps to fix this?” @TrahantReports

A Twitter town hall is a great idea. In theory. This first round revealed three huge problems.

First, the president didn’t play the game. Twitter requires focus, honing and shaping ideas into 140 characters. This is not an easy thing to do, but its very nature it changes the conversation. Twitter captures raw essence, not routine answers. The president stuck with routine answers.

New West Column

How bad is this economy? Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers wrote in The Financial Times this week that the United States is now halfway to a lost economic decade (similar to Japan’s) and that the number of working Americans has dropped from 63.1 percent to 58.4 percent. That’s a net loss of more than 10 million jobs.

Summers defines the problem brilliantly. He writes in the FT: “After bubbles burst there is no pent-up desire to invest. Instead there is a glut of capital caused by over-investment during the period of confidence – vacant houses, malls without tenants and factories without customers. At the same time consumers discover they have less wealth than they expected, less collateral to borrow against and are under more pressure than they expected from their creditors.”

Last week I wrote about how this economic crisis will impact Indian Country through the loss of government-funded jobs. Indeed, readers reacted to my commentary with two basic reactions. One group said it’s time for Native Americans to get off the dole; another asked why tribes aren’t solving this problem on their own?

New West Column

Last week the Bureau of Labor Statistics started a frenzy when it released its latest job report, showing that only 54,000 jobs were added to the economy in May.

The White House says don’t worry too much about those numbers; it only represents one month. Austan Goolsbee, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, told The Associated Press that the addition of a million new jobs over the past six months shows “we have improved a long way from when the economy was in rescue mode.”

That’s true. And, I think the White House ought to get more credit for keeping the economy from falling off the cliff. But at the same time, the future prospects for job creation are bleak. Why? The Republicans are demanding a policy of major government contraction while the White House is “negotiating” for a policy for some contraction. Either way all governments are shrinking. The economy is going to lose a you-know-what load of jobs or a mega-load of jobs. Either way there are a lot of minus-signs ahead.

New West Column

After the last election, Wizi Garriott, a member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, who was then working for the Obama campaign, told Indian Country Today, “For us, the campaign has always been about community empowerment. We’ve tried to put as many resources as possible into Indian communities so we can help our own people organize and empower themselves. That’s what this is all about.”

That’s still what it is about. The type of change that’s required is not going to come from any presidential administration. It will require more people to organize and empower themselves at the community level. To my way of thinking the Obama administration’s policies have complemented that very notion. If that message is clear—especially if it is accompanied by specific Obama administration policies and actions—then there is a good chance Indian Country will turn out and vote again.

New West Column

Republican Party unity on the issue of a massive restructuring of Medicare and Medicaid (if there is such a thing) ended this weekend. Presidential candidate and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said on NBC’s Meet the Press that he opposed the House budget proposal designed by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin.

“I’m against Obamacare, which is imposing radical change, and I would be against a conservative imposing radical change,” Gingrich said. “I don’t think right-wing social engineering is any more desirable than left-wing social engineering. I don’t think imposing radical change from the right or the left is a very good way for a free society to operate.”

I take issue with the notion that the Affordable Care Act is “left-wing” social engineering. To my way of thinking it’s just a baby step toward the type of reforms that are required by the country’s changing demographics. A radical left-wing solution would be single-payer health care system, not one where private doctors and insurance companies are guaranteed profits from the individual mandate.

But the country also needs a real debate about the hard reality of demographics—there are more seniors than ever, plus we all live longer—and it’s those facts that call for some sort of radical restructuring of Medicare. At least Ryan’s plan does that, even though I disagree with it. His idea is to essentially protect current seniors, shifting the burden to people my age (just under 55) and to younger workers. But this a really tough issue and there ought to be a consensus solution.

New West Column

Nobel winning economist Joseph Stiglitz is trying to change the national debate about the deficit, the role of government and the impact of those policies on the day-to-day economy.

“There are principled ways of cutting the deficit ...  putting Americans back to work,” the Columbia University professor recently said in a speech, as quoted in the Nieman Watchdog. He said this is essential in a country where economic inequality is growing and where one percent of the population controls 40 percent of the wealth and takes one-fourth of the nation’s income every year.

He adds:  “The deficit didn’t cause the downturn. The downturn caused the deficit.”

I wish this was the official line from the Obama Administration. Instead, both Republicans and too many Democrats are proposing policies of contraction. We should be shouting: Invest in people! Invest in infrastructure! Invest in ourselves!

New West Column

Sometimes it’s easy for Indian Country to ignore the huge challenges facing the United States. After all, there are so many immediate and intense issues on reservations and in tribal communities that the idea of adding another layer of concerns just seems too much.

But there is a connection.  The current federal policy of contraction—spending less on government programs and people—will have huge implications for Indian Country in the years ahead.

The debate to increase the federal debt limit, the amount of money the United States is authorized by law to borrow, is a good example. Some Republicans have vowed to oppose a debt limit increase unless federal budget cutting ramps up significantly. If that happens, money will be cut from all federal programs, including those that benefit Indian Country.

New West Column

A few weeks ago Bloomberg News reported that Saudia Arabia is investing $100 billion in renewable energy sources. In other words, the country with the largest known reserves of oil is spending its profits building power plants fueled by nuclear energy, wind, geothermal and solar power.

What does Saudia Arabia know that the rest of us don’t? Simply this: It’s far better to save every drop of oil for export (especially with prices exceeding $110 per barrel) and build a less expensive alternative at home. Why not? Saudia Arabia, like any desert nation, is an ideal spot for solar production.

The high cost of that oil impacts Indian Country in a number of ways. Native American consumers are hit especially hard because so many reservations and Alaska villages are geographically isolated. Gas is always expensive—and when it creeps up across the country—well, the cost goes beyond reach. One Minnesota study reports that even in good times (when gas is pegged at $1.50 a gallon) it costs nearly 44 cents per mile to operate a pickup truck. “Extremely rough roads” (what we would call, “rez roads,”) increase that price by another 5.5 cents per mile. And all those numbers total before $4 a gallon. Or worse, $5 or $6 a gallon.

New West Column

The national budget debate is multi-directional. Most of the story, so far, has centered on this year’s federal spending, basically how to strip dollars from a fiscal year that’s roughly half over. Then there is the fight over next year’s budget, the one that is supposed to start on Oct. 1. And, at the same time, there is an argument about the role of the federal government and long-term spending promises.

I think of these issues a bit like a line from the movie “Ghostbusters.” “Don’t cross the streams,” one of the characters warns. “Why?” asks another. “It would be bad.”

We’re at the point in our story where the streams are crossing. The flash of lights and heated rhetoric make it difficult, if not impossible, to explore the issues with either a methodical or strategic approach. We’re a captive to the budget as a show, played on so many stages.

But underlying the theatrics is a basic truth, that much of the growth of government spending stems from demographics, not out-of-control government agencies. Simply put: We have a large older population asking a smaller younger cohort to pay the bills. The cost of an aging society is not just a problem in the United States, it’s a global trend.