GOP platform includes Native-specific language and goals
From Indian Country Today
Posted: September 05, 2008
by: Rob Capriccioso
WASHINGTON – Delegates and leaders of the Republican National Convention have approved a national party platform for the next four years that includes several Indian-focused provisions.
Under a section in the 67-page document titled, ”Supporting Native American Communities,” the platform states that the ”federal government has a special responsibility to the people in Indian country and a unique trust relationship with them, which has been insufficiently honored.
”The social and economic problems that plague Indian country have grown worse over the last several decades, and we must reverse that trend. Ineffective government programs deprive Indians of the services they need, and longterm failures threaten to undermine tribal sovereignty itself.”
The platform, which amounts to a GOP roadmap of principles and goals for the next four years, says that Republicans believe that economic self-sufficiency is the ultimate answer to the challenges in Indian country and that tribal communities, not Washington bureaucracies, are better situated to craft local solutions.
”Federal – and state – regulations that thwart job creation must be reconsidered so that tribal governments acting on Native Americans’ behalf are not disadvantaged.”
Turtle Talk 