Charles Taylor: “I share the frustration of many of those who have spoken on the Indian trust issue. I represent the eastern band of the…”

“I share the frustration of many of those who have spoken on the Indian trust issue. I represent the eastern band of the Cherokee Indians. I have been taught and seen it over and over again, the old adage that government will mess up a one-car funeral. The committee spent $20 million of the taxpayers' money to do a transaction-by-transaction accounting of five named plaintiffs in the Cobell v. Norton litigation and found that one check for $60 went to the wrong person; $20 million to find a $60 error. Can anyone argue that this is a good use of the American taxpayers' money? A Federal court ruling on September 25, 2003, in the class action lawsuit ordered an expanded transaction-by-transaction historical accounting from 1887 to the present. Initial estimates indicate that the accounting ordered by the court would cost between $9 billion and $12 billion. Nobody ever envisioned that we would be spending $12 billion on an accounting that does not provide one dollar to Indian country.”