2014: Defining challenges

Dazed over the vicious slams of the year just past, we retreat to reset buttons to see if there’s any iota of hope left to stimulate economic growth. The urgency is obvious: steady and significant decline in revenue generation. It’s basically a very uninspiring year and 2014 doesn’t look any better either.

Cuts in pension pay, budgetary shortfall for this purpose, and piles of debts with CUC are serious indications of a woefully wobbly fiscal posture. Whatever happened to the gusto of “better times?”

The fiscal setback prompts the need to do due diligence in what’s known as “fiscal gap”—future expenditure versus future receipts. What and how will we do it to stimulate economic growth this year is the defining challenge of 2014.

While the boys are resting on their laurels—apathy land—perhaps it’s just as well that we jolt their senses on what they have done to improve the stagnancy or lack of increase in employees’ income? While there are slated increases in health premiums and deductibles, power bills, cost of food, etc. income remains the same. The 40-percent increase in health premiums has forced a lot of employees to terminate their policies.

At day’s end, the impending increases would further rob families of their purchasing power while Capital Hill snoozes. It includes folks who are underemployed—employees with jobs whose income fall within the federal definition of poverty income level—and others who haven’t seen any increase in salaries for the last decade. Isn’t it your fiduciary duty to improve their lot or income?

The negligence—failure to improve the livelihood of the multitude—literally seals self-inflicted political doom or triumph in darkness for failing the real challenge to fulfilling fiduciary duty.

Policymakers can’t continue humming their favorite nursery rhyme Are You Sleeping. Not when the CNMI is getting torched to ashes by the merciless magma of bankruptcy at every corner. Appalling the urgency of the issue that seems stuck in mediocrity or apathy land.

There’s a definitive and urgent need to review and remove the carcasses of dead, predatory, and regressive policies as we envision the next steps ahead. For instance, is there a need to raise taxes (no mulcting please), cut spending to skeletal level, or forging a combination of these to equal some 10 percent of GDP? It’s a highly sensitive undertaking given that the goal is to revive investment rather than force its final closure as a result of unintended consequences.

Indeed, our holy grail—tourism—indicates an upward spiral in visitor arrival. We hail it but ever wary that it is a highly volatile industry. The power check between China and Japan could send the upwards spiral the other way.

“Given that there are so many factors that could determine how well the visitor industry does in the coming years, like airline seat capacity, exchange rates, and the health of the global economy, nothing is certain in the fortuneteller’s cards,” according to Lowell Kalapa in his column in the Hawaii Reporter.

While the Aloha State does well in most economic ventures, ours is less than stellar as a place to do business as evidenced by the huge closure of large, and most recently, small businesses. The business climate is bad given the high cost of utilities that has literally killed marginal firms.

The exodus of foreign capital in recent past is a huge figure we can’t replace anytime soon. In brief, we’re always capital-short, meaning the NMI needs constant infusion of capital (money) in order to create jobs and financial prosperity to keep the economic engine humming.

This isn’t happening today. Quick fixes like casino, costly energy programs, or tax exemption through the infamous QC program are but gimmicks that produce little in return versus their high cost.

The fiscal disaster is a tale of negligence in fiduciary duty that has finally caught up with unbridled spending habits that has piled up into far less for far more. The persistent exodus of foreign capital exacerbates revenue decline beyond our wildest imaginings.

The economic disaster and its debilitating effects against the purchasing power of families are leadership’s dominant feature and halo on its plate. How do families deal with this monstrosity?

Have they lifted a finger to rework carcasses of dead and regressive policies to reset the button of reinvestments here? If so, what are they and have they organized developmental programs to benefit governance? Or is mediocrity its guiding star, thus the persistent and significant loss in revenues?

This year also reins in the 2014 gubernatorial race to which I’d be worried sick if I were an incumbent in office now. I mean, how do you quell the angst of some 3,000 retirees and their families? How do you justify the skyrocketing spikes in power bills? What’s your answer for implementing the fraudulent Obamacare that has morphed into Nobamacare? How do you mitigate the impending increases in basic commodities amidst huge losses in the family purchasing power?

The hardship imposed by the constant increases in the cost of living throughout the archipelago makes for difficult navigation of the treacherous seas of this year’s election.

Interesting query: what would be their narrative? Could they sufficiently muster the energy to make voters crawl on broken glass to re-elect them or would they quickly lose what’s a foregone conclusion? It’s how well you do to ease economic hardship that defines this year and your future. If you’ve failed, then you’ve sealed your doom.

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In moments of solitude, I often quiz if my views need to slide into “political niceties” partaking in cheering the fatal effects of the “do-nothing” bunch. Difficult the task may be, it remains a matter of conscience and responsibility to “tell it like it is.” I take pride in our people who’ve learned when to say “No Mas!”