Settlement Fund’s deeper hole

The CNMI has floated the idea of borrowing pension obligation bond to the tune of $200 million to cushion what’s now known as the Settlement Fund (retirement). The disastrous insolvency of the program is very troubling. It’s saddled with some $791 million in unfunded liability. Dizzying!

It seems there’s the nervous political agenda to salvage a program leadership has royally driven into the ditch. For political expediency, it is set to overlook the needs for education, health and other social programs. Ever heard of the term priority?

But fees from the casino license have offered some breathing room that could turn stuffy sooner than we’d like. The fee covers the 25-percent cut by this administration 10 months ago. After the payment is made, it’s back to square one!

We’re dazed at the fiscally troubled Fund. Mirrored against woefully flat economic growth and stagnating revenues, it brings into focus whether the short and long-term requirements of the SF could be met. The obligation is spread out over a 10-year period.

The coming fiscal year that begins this October, the SF would need some $27 million to pay the 75 percent pension pay for retirees without restoration of the 25 percent. Has Best Sunshine actually committed to defraying this cost (25 percent restoration) for the duration? If so, it means the SF needs $35.1 million by this October! I’m speechless at the generosity to pay what was cut off retirees’ pension. But how long would this “gift” last?

Politicians forced the program into bankruptcy by piling obligations beyond financial sustainability. Adding salt to injury, previous program managers displayed an aura of invincibility, as though Santa Claus lives next door to douse fiscal indecisions. It engaged paying off the 30 percent bonus, created a housing program, loaned millions to other government agencies but never buckled down to do ocular review if the political excess baggage is sustainable. Why the persistence in digging a deeper bottomless hole? The SF is broke!

Furthermore, every governor avoided remitting what’s owed the SF in what’s known as “employer’s contribution” or share of health and pension cost. It was done as though the debt would disappear like morning dew. Well, it’s still here to the tune of $791 million in unfunded liabilities. We’re in for some nasty juggling of scarce funds. Is negligence and apathy the new culture now?

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It’s hard perceiving the lack of foresight to double down efforts cautiously gauging the performance of the program beyond hollow, politically convenient agenda. It resembles the equivalence of a perfect jihadist agenda to bankrupt the program at all cost. You succeeded royally too! Your indecisions now impose hardship on some 3,800 families. Singing the suspect You Are My Sunshine isn’t going to rebuild the SF that has gone completely broke! If you find miracles in the near term, please share it with the rest of us.

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If I recall, U.S. Social Security was designed with drawdown of benefits at a certain age. Here, it’s open sesame for as long as you fulfilled 20 years of service. So assuming that you retire at age 40 you’d be collecting your loot for the next 20-30 years beyond your contribution. Had benchmarks been imposed, then there would be a better chance the SF could withstand the blows of the bad times. Somehow we have a hard time disposing of a bad hangover from the boom years. Eh, financial famine is here and it’s hitting every family pocketbook by the penny!

When life was simple
With retirement, you’d think there would be greater ease meeting your basic needs in your golden years. It has been the complete opposite. We now recite, “Mirror, mirror on the wall,” would we receive our next haul?

Conveniences in entitlements are great “while they last” especially when someone else is paying for them. Once it fades we return once more to square one. Yes, I yearn for the days when we walk to school with empty tummies or bend down to fix our old zoris that just snapped in the rain or brave gobbling cattle salt and stolen string beans from the school garden for lunch. We never asked for anything else. Life was simple!

We didn’t have iPhones, iPads, Kindle or laptops. We had machetes and sickles to clear weeds at the family farm. We doidn’t even have a landline phone at home for it was a luxury. We did things together as a family that ended with a nightly rosary before hitting the books. Now, kids do what pleases them.

I’d quietly ponder how these kids would survive if a serious disaster ends even employment for their parents. Do they know how to work in the garden, fish, or something constructive in food gathering? Indeed, there’s the generational shift that still requires parents to cautiously navigate strengthening value systems for their children. Firing text messages between kids and parents ends all vital family conversations.

Didn’t even have to worry about color coordinates in wardrobe. If it’s clean put it on and get to class or catechism, never mind that your shirt is red and short pants yellow. Yep! We learned survival in everything we did in the early ’60s. It was traditional value system that held us together even to this day. We know exactly when to impose discipline for the guys and gals. I’m not protesting what kids have these days. It’s a generational shift!

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It’s a challenge growing up during those days when you know deep in your conscience that there’s something greater than the daily miseries of abject poverty. We weren’t sure what it was but we never gave up searching for brighter tomorrows. We did everything including studying by makeshift lantern, waking up the next day with ashes in our nostrils.