Campaign rhetoric not substantive

During Lt. Gov. Diego Benavente’s recent trip to the mainland, he explained to absentee voters that it was unfortunate that the Babauta/Benavente tandem assumed office during the onslaught of external events like the 9/11 attack, SARS, increasing oil prices and medical referrals, as well as declining government budgets. He went on to say that, if given four more years, there would be a more “positive outlook.” He did not explain what would go into making this positive outlook become a reality.

Granted, there were external events that occurred over the past four years that negatively impacted the economies in the mainland and the CNMI. However, these external forces were not responsible for the BB team running up the government deficit to the tune of nearly $120 million and failing to meet the fiduciary responsibility of paying the tens of millions of dollars to the Retirement Fund, PSS, NMC, and CUC consistently.

To pass the onus onto “external forces,” or try and place the blame and responsibility on past governors and the CNMI Legislature clearly shows that Babauta and Benavente tandem are not willing to face the music and take full accountability for why the CNMI government is currently cash-strapped and hard pressed to meet financial obligations on a regular basis.

The electorate who can “see the forest for the trees” regarding gubernatorial responsibilities will clearly discern that, although the abovementioned external forces may have had a negative impact on the CNMI economy, they were not responsible for, and had nothing to do with, the overspending and lack of fiscal planning and prudence on the part of the BB team over the past four years.

The buck stops with the BB team and not with external forces. What is truly unfortunate is that the BB team is in complete denial for their outright failure to provide progressive and fiscally responsible leadership to the entire island community. But since we are essentially 30 days away from Election Day, it might be too late for the BB team to “wake up and smell the coffee.”

For Babauta and Benavente to convey to the island community and absentee voters off island that there will be a positive outlook without being definitive about how it will be accomplished in a black and white platform is not convincing and suspicious at best. Why would anyone buy into the proclamation that things will be more positive with the BB team subsequent to Election Day, when for the past four years there has been virtually no progress in terms of keeping the government out of arrears and current; as well as maintaining and preventing the deficit from increasing significantly? Moreover, the people of the island community must pay the financially painful price regarding power since the BB team dropped the ball in terms of taking care of paying CUC so they could take care of the power generators, and their financial obligation to Mobil.

One of my colleagues in the corporate world told me, “If you aim at nothing, you will hit it.” The BB team has for the past four years aimed at “overspending” and was successful at hitting it for four consecutive years.

Since overspending of public funds must cease and desist for the government and island community to become healthy again, it is time for the electorate to go to the polls on Nov. 5 and elect political leadership that possesses vision and conscientiousness about fiduciary responsibility that will move the island community forward according to a bona fide and definitive plan that will establish and pursue goals and objectives that will have a positive impact on the overall quality of life for the entire island community and stabilize the fiscal disposition of the government.

Dr. Jesus D. Camacho
Delano, Camacho