Executive fiat cometh

Or is this dysfunction caused by attention deficit disorders: amnesia, dyslexia or myopia forcing a trigger-happy leap into deafening silence, fearful of principle-based reasoning? Sorry if I’m a bit too crusty but then what else is there? Your deafening silence is disturbingly troubling.

The seemingly fatal mañana attitude draws attention to six long years without a roadmap or blueprint to guide any economic recovery effort. It further draws attention to the urgency: Is there anybody up there in charge of mapping or remapping the future of the CNMI? Could we reasonably expect some modicum of progress when the culprit is the lack of will by both sides to even meet?

Indeed, politics is interesting and equally frustrating. Inaction, bankruptcy and dystopia seem fitting descriptions of failure here. Sure, we’re human: we don’t always think things through, so we accept many ideas, including fatal inaction, as we grapple with uncertainty. We also look past certain truths without recognizing them. The obvious lack of a blueprint addressing economic recovery is one malfeasance or misfeasance that is inexcusable.

The other is the abrogation of fiduciary responsibility by lawmakers on policy matters. Are legislators without coconuts to insist on an economic recovery blueprint from the administration? Are you folks in collusion with them, boasting inconsequence wrapped in illusion and delusion?

No wonder the administration uses “executive fiat” to take over policy functions of various agencies. Legislators may abhor recent decrees but one must agree it’s a master stroke that instantly paralyzes the sense of the Legislature from figuring out where is north. The least the Legislature could do is push for critical review of such decrees that may altogether be without constitutional foundation. It’s time to fight back to secure the basic tenet that what government does is limited to the “consent of the governed.” Nobody deserves the crowning achievement of inaction and misery from either branch of government.

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NMI’s bad biz climate

Incomprehensible the mindset of half-cocked legislators who brave forging legislation to cut tax rebates while increasing BGRT to pay for the inadequacies of the imperiled Retirement Fund.

Two things are fatally wrong and off course with these proposals: 1). Why would employees and employers in private industries makeup for something (pension program) they are not a part of? Why would you want to discourage reviving investment by saddling potential investors with an obligation that is rightfully the purview of the public sector?

Isn’t it true that in recent months, counties, cities and states that have raised taxes-hoping for increased revenue-found out it had a completely opposite result? Isn’t it true that more businesses have moved to nearby states where taxes are low with less stifling regulations? The net effect is simple: more businesses relocated quicker than the collection of taxes emanating from discouraging tools that wiped out investments. Same here too, people. Must retreat and figure out the actual culprit in the exodus of exogenous investments.

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Imperial immigration policy

President Obama had to take out the wind from Sen. Marco Rubio’s Dream Act and simultaneously send the GOP reeling for answers. Would he secure Latino votes? Definitely! Would he lose other votes like young Americans and a legion of jobseekers displaced from jobs when Obama’s use imperialistic executive authority? Definitely!

Obama did nothing but divide the country with social issues such as immigration. This policy, however, won’t last given that it would be rescinded immediately upon his ouster from office. It doesn’t leave much hope for recipients nor did it allow employers time to engage in long term planning by hiring employees that are here today, gone tomorrow. But the liberal media calls it a political masterstroke.

Next, he issued another imperialistic order denying the U.S. House of Representatives’ oversight committee documents it has requested for over a year. Constitutional experts say his use of executive privilege is an overreach given that he never met the criteria for such authority. It doesn’t deal with national security or ultra-sensitive foreign affairs issues.

He certainly has riled up the angst of opposing politicians and has sent the entire country into acrimonious polemics that would ring loud all over for the next couple of weeks. It goes to show his disconnect with issues and special ability to use distractions to avoid addressing his failed economic policy.

I admire his morphing “Fast and Furious” to “False and Vicious.” Perhaps the more relevant query that popped up at a certain book signing of Obama’s self-inflicted contradictions was: Is he merely incompetent or was this wreckage intentional? With Obama’s abysmal failure and litany of broken promises, what do you make of the smoldering heap of discontent and colossal disaster on jobs for over 10 million jobless folks?

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Miscellany

The gathering of politicians in regional or international meetings is pointless and very expensive and of what benefit to taxpayers? It’s a good place for photo-ops and listen to keynote speakers regurgitate what we already know in addition to taking home trashy resolutions that will never be read again. Whatever happened to moral humility?

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In the midst of all the felicitations fortuitously exchanged by APIL delegates, the NMI has yet to fork out a concrete roadmap to economic recovery. The absence of such a blueprint leaves behind the question whether people on the hill even care about forging a reasonable plan to follow amidst the deepening bad business climate.

Didn’t the red gals and guys just launch their return to the campaign trail? What are they peddling this time? Well, the deeply ingrained perception by voters of grand failure by this administration is sufficient a seed already germinated for this midterm election. Welcome to the Garden of Change!

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Laughter

Joke from Jay Leno: It was 100 degrees in New York City. It was so hot, you know Solyndra, the solar company? They actually made money. It was so hot, Attorney General Eric Holder was selling water guns to Mexican drug gangs.