James Whittier Parker: “let us put this in perspective. Let us take a tribe that has taken the initiative, and they are paying for their…”

“let us put this in perspective. Let us take a tribe that has taken the initiative, and they are paying for their administrative cost, and they have done what we have asked them to do. What I have told the tribes, if the Federal Government wants to do this to you, all you need to do is sit back and say, ``We are not going to participate anymore, and now it is up to you to pay all of it. You have a statutory responsibility to come and pay for it.'' They have saved us money. They have permitted us to have the additional funds that are there. I must tell my colleagues it is being totally unfair to these tribes that have taken the initiative and they have played by the rules. They have done what they wanted. That $26 million, by the way, does not all go to these tribes. We have salary increase in that. I think the net coming out is around $15 million that is going toward the actual contract cost. So I appreciate the fact that what my colleagues have done is increase it by $26 million, but I think that my colleagues are penalizing these tribes, and there is no reason to do that.”