A whopping 80-percent salary hike!

The elected elite recently increased its salaries by a whopping 80 percent. Its action, though, was rendered useless by the failure to appropriate funds for its new largess.

It openly boasts arrogance that literally kicked the teeth of employees and their families NMI-wide. And they call it “public service”—a self-serving policy benefitting me, myself and I.

Once more it was determined to leave the multitude in vicious decline while it fixes its elitist economic island living it high. Appalling the purposeful deceit denying employees some increase to meet fatal increases in the price of basic goods over the last 10 years. Isn’t utility rates going up too?

They threw bones at employees—a 5-percent increase—as though they didn’t know any better. I call it insult to injury, given the low salaries of most employees today. I’m sure they were relying on some help to improve family income even in a small way!

Raffy Torres and Arnold Palacios played possum (dead), leaving the island without taking any action on the measure. Rafaet Demapan garbled his ignorant explanation of a non-existent federal standard on salaries.

But Torres played smart, refusing to identify a source of funds. Now he’s in a tango with his partner Raffy D that could turn diabolical.

This insult forces the multitude to ask whatever happened to all the “biba” turned “biliba” that further erodes trust in our governmental institutions? Wouldn’t the salary increase wedge deeper divide between the “haves” as in the elected elite and “have-nots” of “we the people”?

It’s good to know how the elected elite has adopted greed as its working vocabulary, arrogance its shining armor. But we weren’t blinded at all by its ill-fated political miscalculation. Well, the cat is out of the bag! Isn’t 2018 nearby?

This is the legacy of local Republican rhinos who have trashed and lost all sense of value and empathy. They could no longer feel the mind-numbing hardship of our people in the villages. Call it complacency!

It has successfully destroyed ordinary citizens by pushing them further into the abyss of poverty. It consistently cushioned Cadillac lifestyle while “we the people” salivate in poverty corner. When can you “do the right thing” by doing it right?

Your role: In defining “leadership,” I defer to the biblical Moses, commanded by the Lord to pull the Jews out of Egypt to free them from slavery.

In a modern context, yours is to free our people from the hardship of economic slavery! Is this an issue you understand when you took the oath of office in recent past? Or did it slip and slide into your usual redundant answer, “Not yet, already?”

Overlooking NMI needs: The 60-bed hospital capacity has been dwarfed by the increase of critical long-term patients needing timely medical help. As such, patients admitted for medical attention had to wait all day at the ER because of the lack of rooms on the floor. Ooops!

It’s an inadequacy that has intensified in recent past given the increase in the local population, specifically those suffering from long-term illnesses. In brief, CHC needs immediate expansion to help the spike in critical patients. Does it matter to you that such is now the case at CHC?

The Public School System is another essential agency that requires tons of money for facilities, including the upgrade of instructions at an institution of learning frequented five days a week by thousands of our children. Isn’t it time to buckle down for deliberative discussion on this too?

The number: You don the aura of greed tiptoeing self-serving 80 percent salary increase for yourself. When would you stop your fat cat greed?

I’m sure you know that the double-digit figure isn’t a dancing number from Sesame Street. Nor did it come from grammar school kids doing simple arithmetic, e.g., “one plus one is two.” Have you any sense of conscience and since when are taxpayers and their families immune from price increases in basic goods?

Reality check: Demapan and cronies have failed to see issues through the eyes of the ordinary people they represent! Isn’t this a tall tale of their elitist culture, determined to ignore the struggle of ordinary families?

You skip private sector employees, the productive sector, as though they are aliens to the deepening hardship. Isn’t it true that private industries fuel the local coffers? Are private sector employees used spare parts whose contributions are simply to enlarge the overflowing food sacks of non-productive government employees?

Have you peeped into the conditions of typical local families here to see how they’ve fared, absorbing the increase of basic goods, enduring stagnant wages while paying for the first family home, family car, and basic needs?

Isn’t it true that their salaries have remained stagnant (no increase) for the last three decades under Republican charge? Is their hardship a reason to cushion your pockets with a whopping 80 percent increase in salary?

Investments: Isn’t economic prosperity founded on healthy investments? Beyond BSI, is there any other major investor who has seen positive prospects of investing in the NMI after the Fitch and Moody’s report? Would they risk investing in a place like the NMI riddled with negative assessments?

Isn’t financing institutions reliant upon global economic firms’ assessment to protect the money of other people before any investment is made?

Relying on “temperamental” growth is to ignore that most of what you see grew like wild grass. In other words, they popped up all over without a plan. Did you get that pal? Or was it the result of your plan and did you ever have one to begin with?

It’s clear our financial posture is dangerously wobbly, though, in grand self-denial. Is this an issue you’ve finally come to terms with or did it skip your nimble mind once more? Is EVERbody home or “not yet, already?”