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• "To get them out of that rut, you have to invest in them somehow. You want to encourage them to work and see what their talents are," King said. "But if this (shutdown) continues, we'll have to look at all of our programs individually and say can we afford this, to see what we could do to provide services to our most needy."
• He says Fort Belknap's Gros Ventre and Assiniboine tribes will pay for affected programs themselves until federal payments resume. But he warns that could hurt tribal finances already strained from prior federal cuts. Within just a few weeks, carrying the cost of federal programs could cost the tribe roughly $1 million, King said.

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