By Lee Egerstrom

All Americans were wondering as February came to a close how efforts in Washington to abolish programs, slash government work forces and hold back federal funds would affect their livelihoods and wellbeing.

No exceptions. This concern reaches from neighborhood organizations on up to city and county governments, to American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) nations and their treaty relationships with the federal government, and to every household involved with senior citizens and people with special needs.

“If you operate with grants or payments from a federal program, you are affected,” said Louise Matson, executive director of the Division of Indian Work (DIW) in Minneapolis. “You don’t know when or if future payments will keep your programs alive.”

News about programs and federal funds that support them changed daily during the month, and sometimes by the hour. Adding to the confusion is that states – Minnesota included – have joined in court challenges to actions taken by the Trump administration and by its ex officio budget cutters, the Elon Musk self-appointed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Any quick court decision can be challenged and stalled. Trump has extensive experience with these legal maneuvers.

Media cannot guess how these battles will play out. That being the case, here are tidbits of what Minnesotans and the Native American communities are doing and dealing with.

All Minnesota lawmakers in Washington D.C. and, in response, at the State Capitol in St. Paul are facing these political uncertainty issues.

Tribal leaders from Red Lake, Leech Lake and Mille Lacs spent part of the last week of February in Washington in meetings with Minnesota Congress members and testifying at hearings.

They met with Sen. Tina Smith, a member of Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, and with Fourth District Rep. Betty McCollum, a senior member of the House Appropriations Committee including its Subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies that handles important funding bills for American Indians. Both are Minnesota Democrats.

Red Lake Chairman Darrell G. Seki Sr., Leech Lake Secretary-Treasurer Leonard Fineday and Mille Lacs Chief Executive Virgil Wind testified at a House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior hearings. The Red Lake News reported that Seki and Tribal Secretary Sam Strong also met with Senator Smith on how the Trump Administration’s funding freeze on tribal infrastructure projects and proposed cuts to other programs would harm the Red Lake Nation.

In a statement to The Circle, Indian Affairs Committee member Smith said the agenda by “unelected billionaire” Elon Musk threatens tribal sovereignty and puts Native communities and people at risk.

“He’s been gutting programs people rely on to make room for their $4 trillion plan to give tax cuts to billionaires and big corporations. I’m working with my colleagues in the Senate to fight back and use every tool we have to limit the harm to Tribal Nations and Native communities by this reckless agenda,” she said.

Among scary budget issues is whether Social Security, Medicaid and other health programs will be affected by proposed cuts. So far, House Republican budget plans bring conflicting reports from lawmakers and administration officials and what may or won’t be included and eliminated in efforts to trim $1.5 trillion up to $2 trillion from federal budget outlays for the next decade.

Some GOP leaders told reporters Medicaid won’t be targeted. House Speaker Mike Johnson has said he isn’t sure. Fourteen Republican members of the Minnesota Legislature wrote to the state’s four Republican members of Congress and asked they not support the proposed cuts advancing in a House budget bill. They warned, “There are no other sources to make up the lost federal share beyond severely impacting our seniors and those with disabilities who we serve.”

There are always members of Congress wanting to eliminate “fraud, waste and abuse” in federal spending. Those terms can be used to describe anything from building bridges, hospitals, national parks, flood control projects or health programs in another state a person doesn’t use. It is especially useful to demean a program that assists targeted people.

Four convenient categories often used here and in parts of Europe include racism, bigotry, sexism and xenophobia. Here those categories are being given a new cover – DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion).

American Indians carry at least one of those currently popular target labels. But wealth may be an emerging category separating the masses from those in control.

Senator Smith shows this in the threat to Medicaid. More than one in five Americans – 72 million people – are low-income people or individuals with disabilities supported by the federal health program. That includes 1.3 million Minnesotans .

People in Greater Minnesota and the Twin Cities will all be affected if Medicaid cuts are made to support tax cuts for the wealthy, she said.

In a conference call press conference with Minnesota media, she explained: “It is the insurance that’s so important to rural hospitals. Without Medicaid, rural hospitals in our state would basically go out of business.

“And if you care about Hennepin Healthcare, if you get your health care in Hennepin County, Hennepin Healthcare cannot exist without Medicaid.”

She was among nine U.S. senators joining a letter led by Sen. Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M. calling on Trump to “lay off” the Indian Health Service (IHS) where more than 850 employees are at risk of being fired.

The letter said the federal government has a “fundamental obligation to fulfill its treaty and trust responsibilities to Tribal Nations – an obligation that includes providing services such as health care to Native communities.”

Moreover, the senators noted that cutting IHS services would not save taxpayers money. It would raise costs to other programs for travel, accommodations and related expenses as affected patients and families seek care away from their Tribal lands.

As the month came to a close, a new round of federal employee firings was reported at the Veterans Administration and its health facilities. If allowed to last, this will affect all Americans and their families with needs who are connected to having served the nation in the military.

It will definitely be felt within the American Indian community – long recognized as having a disproportionately high percentage of people who serve as our nation’s “warriors.”

But every program and service connected to federal programs are affected, said Division of Indian Work leader Matson (White Earth Nation). She is also an officer in the Metropolitan Urban Indians Directors (MUID) organization, and all the nonprofit care, health, education and cultural groups are agonizing over the Washington chaos.

“You can’t budget for the unknown,” she said. “Not one nonprofit organization has a reserve fund standing by to fill the void.”

The post Trump/DOGE slash federal spending: tribes wrestle with economic impact first appeared on The Circle News.