Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Indian Education, and Indian Health Service Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2014
Floor Speech
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Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
I can agree with parts of what my friends have said, and parts I frankly can't agree with. I have worked in a bipartisan manner across the aisle and with the White House on Native American issues ever since I have gotten here, no matter who was on the other side of the aisle or who was in the White House. And I have to tell you, when you question the commitment of our side on Native American affairs, you clearly haven't looked at the record.
Because of this chairman, Indian health expense is up 29 percent in 3 years. Each year for the last 3 years, we have raised above what the administration requested in Native American spending, and that is a fact. And we did it, by the way, working in a bipartisan manner. I want to give my friend, Mr. Moran, and my friend, Betty McCollum, a lot of credit for those achievements, and I want to give our predecessor, Norm Dicks, who operated the same way, a lot of credit for that. This is a good-faith effort to do exactly what my friends suggest--make sure that critical programs in Indian Country are funded right now. I will continue to work in a bipartisan manner with my friends on these and other issues, but to suggest that they are being used as a pawn, no, for the first time they are just not being forgotten about because that is what tends to happen around here; and that has happened under Democrats and Republicans.
So with that, I would urge the adoption and support. I want to thank my friend for being the leader in this House on funding Native American programs. He has done more than anybody in this country to improve the quality and the level of Federal services on that. He ought to be given the credit that he deserves. I want to thank my friend, Mr. Moran, for working with him every step of the way to accomplish those things. I saw them do it when their roles were reversed when he was the chairman and he was the ranking member. It is not an effort to divide. It is an effort, actually, to put something out that has united us in a bipartisan sense and to make sure that the first Americans aren't the last Americans anybody around here thinks about.
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