The Tunda Drums interviewed Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri) about her proposal to change the 8(a) program that has benefited tribes, Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians.

"TD: It looks like your proposed bill would result in 44 percent of the benefits being removed. And to me that's just a huge hit. How can you morally stomach that?

CM: Well, what I think is most immoral about what is going on now is how these Alaska Natives are being used and frankly abused by these companies. These companies are fronting for major corporations with executives and people that are getting rich off no-bid contracts and the people in Alaska are just getting the crumbs off the table.

Now the sad thing is those crumbs are so meaningful. But it seems to me that the way to do this is to put Alaska Native corporations in the same category as other minority programs and as they succeed they will no longer need a sole-source contract, they can compete.

In fact, a lot of these companies can compete now. They just don't have to. They are major corporations. And I would hope that this would, one, invigorate the Alaska Native communities to drive for a better bargain with the companies they work with, and secondly, save taxpayers money by forcing these companies to compete like every other company has to do.

And if at the end of the day there are needs that these tribes have then we need to be honest about addressing those.

But to address them in this back-handed way where we're giving huge benefits to these multinational corporations, and they're getting fabulously wealthy, and throwing Alaska literally a bone, that's offensive to me.

TD: Why not take smaller steps to make sure that abuse is not occurring and to make sure that it's more than crumbs, perhaps like a shareholder hire minimum, or some sort of educational scholarship minimum?

CM: There's nothing to keep the Alaska Native corporations from doing that now. Why haven't they done it?"

Get the Story:
McCaskill open to other ideas for reforming 8(a) program (The Tunda Drums 12/15)

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Sen. McCaskill takes aim at Alaska Native corporation contracts (11/19)
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Paper asks candidates about Native 8(a) government contracts (10/22)
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