-=> Quoting Sondra Ball to Jim Casto <=-
 > a federal agnecy refused to pay a "non-existent" tribe. That money has now
 > grown to ten million dollars today. There are one thousand five hundred
 > Cowlitz and they own seventeen acres.
 SB> The BIA still has that money??!!!!  Or maybe it was placed in the
 SB> hands of another agency?
 
 Actually, I am not clear on that. (Sounds like a topic for a research 
aper.)
 As best I have been able to find out, the BIA only decides "who" _gets_ 
money.
 And it is not the BIA that signs the checks. As best I can find out, any
 checks issued to a tribal government are "signed" by the Treasury 
epartment,
 not the BIA. This is similar to a federal tax refund. As I recall, my refund
 checks say they are issued by the Treasury, not the IRS eventhough it is the
 IRS that decided I was, in fact, entitled to that money.
 
 By the same token, "money" in this case, is only a "token". The money was
 "awarded" and never "paid out" and the debt was never "extinguished". 
omeone
 has now claimed the debt. In other words, one agency (the BIA?) decide to 
ut
 the money in a "trust fund" in the event that _some_ day _someone_ would
 claim it. Much as if an unknown relative of yours died and left a big estate
 "in trust" in case a legal heir was found and you eventually claimed the
 inheritance.
 In a way, this kinda sorta refutes the "U.S. government is all bad." 
syndrome.
 Or "The big, bad BIA 'lost' all the money." It looks like in this particular
 case the "money" was there all along, it just took a long time and a lot of
 work to get it. Another interesting aspect of this case... The money was NOT
 "awarded", "put into a trust fund", etc. as the result of a treaty. Why 
was_
 the money "awarded"? Benevolent government?
 And as I taxpayer, I resent the fact that the "government" wasted a lot of
 _my_ money by not simply recognizing the dept and paying it sooner. One
 could speculate where (economically speaking) the Cowlitz would be today if
 $1.5 million had been given to them twenty years ago. One can put together
 all kinds of scenarios.
 Jim
--- Blue Wave v2.12
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