Irony of a rainy day

It’s an overcast day sprinkled by lazy drizzles. Coincidental the irony in the melody playing in the background: “Here’s that rainy day.” Do I accept it or wrestle my way out of it? For excitement I asked myself: What haven’t we driven into the ditch already?
Ditched: The Retirement Fund is bankrupt and would end in 2019. When that is history, we would return to marshland fishing tilapia, walk wooded areas between Afetña to Tanapag for land crab, or remote places for wild yam and chicken. Wonder what else would we peddle in an economic dystopia—where nothing works—to make it into the next break of dawn.

CUC is equally insolvent or broke and doesn’t have the funds to put in place reliable, stable, and affordable power. Out the window goes business expansion so additional revenue generation goes out the window. It’s a major component in the deepening economic mess here. Is anybody home?

Question: We boast of tourism improvement, ignoring the real question: How much revenue has it sent to the local coffers? Haven’t we been looking at the wrong numbers riddled with fallacy?

CHC was left to fend for itself under a new arrangement without transition funds and timeline. This was a decision by the former governor who plundered the livelihood of posterity. It’s a legacy carried forward to this day. Our salute to the board for its agility salvaging the only public hospital here, albeit difficult the fiscal issues they have to endure.

Slowly, CHC is back on its feet and should do well fiscally as issues are refined and improved in the interest of the general public. No sense of responsibility or accountability from the former commander-in-mischief that equally spouted indigenous self-government. It was more a statist (dictatorial) government.

Violation: Did the Inos administration step in to rescue the Fund? Where did it get its authority to arbitrarily cut retirees’ pay by 25 percent? Isn’t the violation of constitutional law illegal? Are we supposed to accept a government by fiat as change from Fitial’s dictatorial term? Isn’t there what’s known as “fidelity to constitutional law?”

Unsettling the violation of the concept of separation of powers that unilaterally encroaches upon the power of the judicial branch. The only room given Inos in this case is enforcement but never the authority to ignore it altogether. It’s constitutional law and not an idea to violate or ignore at will. Fitial/Inos never paid into the Fund, though the law they sought was declared unconstitutional. Where did they get statutory or constitutional relief?

Debts: Moreover, the CNMI is saddled with other hefty financial obligations while revenue generation is stuck dead on its track. It puts meeting payments on a timely basis problematic and opens the door for missed deadlines, including meeting the court adjudicated settlement agreement.

Casino: Has the CNMI done anything successfully besides driving everything into the ditch or bankruptcy? We now move headlong into casino—an industry we know nothing about—convinced we could get more money from license and annual fees. Las Vegas thrives on the taxes of its casino industry, not from breadcrumb fees. It involves the counting of soft and hard money fully guarded. Did we know this or is it fine to ignore the bigger purse of the industry?

New Hampshire has just shot down casino gambling, knowing it has failed to deliver the monetary promises made in nearby states with casinos. It’s good to learn from its state legislators who are paid $100 per year, none of whom is beholden to special interests.

We’ve bankrupted the Fund, CHC, CUC and the last “C”, casino, waiting to be the next casualty of bankruptcy. We’ve specialized doing things headlong without using our cranium to figure out “what’s north!” It’s humiliating!

With heaps of debts and casino industry set to further ruin the economic and fiscal posture of the CNMI, why are we setting ourselves up to subsidize this industry? The cumulative debt is over a billion dollars. Isn’t this fiscal impotence a dangerous trend? Why dig a wider and deeper hole?

Where’s the culture of responsibility? Isn’t “we the people” the government? Why have we surrendered government to two incompetent and clueless branches? Isn’t it time that we reclaim it from the arrogant bunch heavily beholden to special interest groups?

Uneventful issues

Buddy Magoo was helping compile names of this year’s “horse race” (general election) of every stripe. He said he enjoys a hypothetical scenario where we camp all candidates at a cattle ranch. At dawn, we slam the gates open and watch the guys mow each other down.

He breaks down an interesting file into: Never Been (new), Has Been (incumbent), Fossil Head, and Dinosaurs. He explained each category:

Never Been: Prospective candidates who’re basically greenhorns or neophytes.

Has Been: Useless incumbents standing far too long on the regurgitation assembly line.

Fossil Head: Those who’ve lost relevancy, incapable of articulation on most issues.

Dinosaurs: Deadbeats, basically relics who lack credibility.

Whichever category you wedge yourself in or fit your overblown ego, voters instantly do their mental Google to size you up. So you’re not as free as you think from critical scrutiny. Voters will find you even if you withdraw into a hermit crab hole.

It would be interesting talking to the guys in each category if only to explore their knowledge-based understanding of issues. I mean, we have to know their literacy level lest one might chance saying that“ diplomacy” is a high school diploma or that policy is about police officers. It’s vital when global issues and their implications affect these islands. Must know if they know their issues or if they don’t know that they don’t know. The latter case is a trip to trouble land.

John DelRosario Jr. is a former publisher of the Saipan Tribune and a former secretary of the Department of Public Lands.