Bankruptcy Enterprise!

Salaries have remained the same for 20 years while basic needs have gone up by a combined reduction in family buying power of as much as 80 percent. Everybody’s stuck in the filthy swamp of leadership passivity or mediocrity. It has morphed into a new flagship: Bankruptcy Enterprise!

But there’s suspicious whispers of “economic recovery” which is so far removed from real life experiences of families literally struggling to make ends meet.

The medley of crisis implosion everywhere has paralyzed the entire community. And you sit hopelessly asking redundantly: What else is imploding? This as the narrative of bankruptcy takes its permanent seat with suspicious scaffolding from the corrosive culture of ad hoc planning.

Was this a matter of choice, therefore self-inflicted? Obviously, the debilitating condition came from leadership snoozing at the switchboard. Its negligence translates into hardship found everywhere. Our people are innocent victims of failure crashing and cascading heavily from the hill.

The mother goose of all implosions has displaced over 3,000 families who left the CNMI in search of greener pasture elsewhere in recent years. Eh, but the guys and gals came up with casino as the salvation to our fiscal and financial miseries. They believe in the fallacy that putting the camel’s nose under the tent would resolve the mess!

Leadership here is a pipedream. “Incompetence breeds incompetence, and eventually the slowest-witted among us recognize the man who not only doesn’t know what he’s doing but won’t listen to those who do. His earnest ignorance blights everything he touches.”

For the longest time we’ve never had a plan founded on sound policies. Most everything falls into the convenient trap of the new corrosive culture of ad hoc planning as a result of the lack of vision. Policy dictates everything! We have none!

Thick layer of representation

If perchance you feel underrepresented, you’re dead wrong and for good measure too. Let’s revisit what I’ve spouted about government in years past: “Everything is government.”

We believe in “everything is government” to the extent that we’ve piled layers of it one right after another. Let’s list them for purposes of ocular review: Mayors of every municipality, municipal councils, legislative delegations, bicameral legislature, governor, lieutenant governor, over 15 Cabinet members, and boards and commissions.

It seems a bit too crowded, huh? Doesn’t it remind you helping at a family party where folks cutting and slicing meat and vegetables around the table started stepping on each other’s feet? But this is a festive occasion. There’s nothing festive about running a crowded and inefficient government!

The beastly creature and its tentacles of half-cocked representatives are supposed to work the clock to assist the simple folks in the villages. But there’s a virus on bureaucratic obesity that disables cranial and physical functions preventing the guys and gals from an honest day’s work. As such we the taxpayers get the royal screw daily, weekly, and annually. Taxpayers get milked to the hilt. How long must we endure this egregious miscalculation in representation?

$100K for NM Who?

Redundancy is a term we’ve fallen in love with in recent past. This is attributable to the lack of framework upon which we buckle down to—skip addressing—and move to “resolving” indigenous issues. It’s appalling the special ability to trash common sense altogether. The NMD bunch wanted its $100K come hell or high water. But let’s revisit what you’ve skipped rather conveniently.

There are the constitutionally mandated offices such as Indigenous and Carolinian Affairs. Both are equipped with staff and capital equipment to fulfill what the NMD bunch wanted done. Can the Legislature dispose of DPL funds from the Managaha landing fees? The Constitution leaves no room for politicians in the instant case. In brief, stay constitutional and don’t simply take the quick exit in the commission of fiat. In other words, pertinent constitutional provision says DPL subtracts “administrative expenses,” the balance of which is remitted to MPLT. The only permissible appropriation is “earned interest” from MPLT’s investment turned over to the general fund. Or did I miss something in between?

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Car leases: There’s the silent humongous expense “we the taxpayers” fork out for our overly paid elected elite. It’s known as “car leases” worked up with various car dealers. Throughout the life of the contract, two to four years, we the taxpayers pay for auto services when the vehicle has mechanical and other problems.

When the public official’s term ends, he slips by the side and buys the leased car, paying the balance. I mean, since when did we taxpayers agree that you could avail of such sweetheart deal at our expense? I strongly recommend that the public auditor probe this issue and get back what’s owed taxpayers. Give us back our money spent on auto service and other expenses during the life of the contract. Eh, a fraud is a fraud is a fraud no matter how you dice or splice it!

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Hello! In bad times, it’s good to learn from the lessons of history. The state of New Hampshire pays its legislators $100 per year. It pays the least that does the best. Isn’t it time we also critically review whether a bicameral system is still relevant or is it more on the side of completely uselessness? It spends over $4.8 million annually for what? Has it moved the needle of growth forward? In other words, what has it done to improve family income over the last 20 years? It’s all in the palm of our hands. Think about it!