We've all heard about how many bad things the US government did to American Indians in the past.

But what about today? Like most people, the only time I hear about today's American Indians

is when people are outraged about sports mascots or team names like the Washington Redskins.

But sports teams names are the least of Indian's problems. Did you know that Indians have the

highest rate of poverty of any racial group in America? Did you know that alcoholism is more

common among Indian youths than among youths in any other ethnic group? Did you know that the rate

of child abuse among Indians is twice as high as the national average? Until I visited Indian

reservations for my book The New Trail of Tears, I didn't know any of this. What was at the root

of these terrible problems I wondered? And the deeper I dug, the more I realized that between

the 19th century and today, nothing has changed. It's still the government. The two main agencies

that oversee the activities of Indians who live on reservations are the Bureau of Indian Affairs

or BIA and the Bureau of Indian Education or BIE. Education, economic development, tribal courts,

road maintenance, agriculture and social services, the federal government basically funds and controls

all of it. It's no wonder Indians say BIA stands for bossing Indians around. Together, these two

agencies have combined budgets of $3 billion per year and have 9,000 employees. That's one employee

for every 111 Indians on a reservation. Of that $3 billion per year, the BIE uses 850 million of it

to educate 42,000 students. That's more than $20,000 per student compared to a national average of

$12,400 per student. Plenty of other federal agencies also have programs for Indians.

For instance, the Indian Health Service had a 2015 budget of over $4.6 billion. And yet, there

are widespread and documented reports of nurses being unable to administer basic drugs,

of broken resuscitation equipment and of unsanitary medical facilities. Obviously, inadequate

funding isn't the problem. The billions of dollars that the federal government spends on Indians

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