Smiles vs reality check

Wherever you go, you’d notice the quick shift in the mood of politicians (incumbents, “has-been,” and neophytes). And it’s only the fickle and balmy months of April and May that is still ways off the hot iron summer that begins in June.
Earlier, they were smiling ear-to-ear, even drooling. Now they begin to see the reality of likely grand defeat in November. Smiles slip into a very unsettling fear!

Indeed, fear is a powerfully effective teacher that even grades and tests mettle on incredibly sharp curves. Perhaps it’s just as appropriate a time to pull out the old game plan to take an ocular review of your failures. Hell, I’d be worried sick too with one too many failed promises. That sense of securing re-election has begun to slip quicker than one could tighten handgrips.

Now, if you’re resigned to defeat, it’s likely you’d be returning to the villages to stand shoulder to shoulder with folks you’ve failed to represent with integrity. So if you’re out looking for good news or not-so-bad news, your fear of graveyard haunts is real. Trust me! Obviously, you’d be desperate to avoid the legacy of disorientation, weakness, mediocrity, incompetence, and misfeasance.

Understandably, your deeply troubling concerns must have kept you awake nights. From your standpoint, advancing the ball of securing re-election is a Johnny Come Lately. From our standpoint, we’d fight you tooth and nail to demonstrate with finality that we will not give away our principles and convictions. No mas! Your crisply frail and failed performance says it all.

Now you’re gathering nervously in the horizon for that final sail into the sunset of a self-sealed political defeat. It isn’t a tsunami headed your way but a rising tide deep and sufficiently powerful to drown the wary and unwary dimwits what lies ahead. Go ahead and make as much loot while you can before the sun takes a holiday and escorts your canoe to the permanence of “has been.”

Well, the prospect for sound defeat grows despite the lame search for good news. I’m sure you could feel on your neck the hot breath of revenge and retribution hailing from, yes, “we the people” you’ve royally ignored. Should you be worried about it? Absolutely!

I mean the cost of living has gone up 20 percent while salaries remain stagnant for more than 20 years. Did you do anything about it? Isn’t familial economic misery the unsolicited trophy you’ve placed on the backs of simple villagers yearning for leadership?

After your defeat, you would be standing next to ordinary folks seeking for jobs at the local Department of Labor. No worries! We’re compassionate especially for the “walking dead.”

Health cost vs income

A good number of regular employees and retirees have terminated their health insurance policies. Such deduction has literally taken out the wind of what’s left in their paychecks. They end up going home with only their check stubs. It’s family sustenance first, therefore the withdrawal.

Retirees are hardest hit when Gov. Eulogio Inos illegally cut pension pay by 25 percent. You add the 40-percent increase in health premiums for a total loss in income of some 65 percent. No wonder retirees, including regular employees with poverty income, had to end their health insurance policies.

How do they meet real family needs when the cost of living jumped by 20 percent while their income remains the same for over a decade? Guam’s economy gained some 24 percent while ours the complete opposite!

The administration and Legislature were woefully mute as more folks pull out of the health insurance program. Reason? It means far less payment of employer’s contribution (NMI government) on health for both retirees and employees. It must be a tactical silence to force Medicaid to enroll more recipients given that the program pays 100 percent of billable services. Woe!

It was a dilemma created by the local government to free itself of an obligation at the expense of retirees and employees. The next pit stop is hopeful entry and qualification into the Medicaid program.

Quick depletion of funds

In the interim, there’s the Medicaid application process to which the number of prospective recipients now threaten depletion of funds. In other words, there would be more takers than what’s available under the program.

If Medicaid funds run out as a result of the impending increase in recipients, would the local government be able to cough up some $6.5 million annually, if not more, to cover it? Shall we pass another hasty casino bill?

It would be a double flushing of employees and retirees out the health obligation of the local government, right? Isn’t the health of our people an important item on your agenda?

If you think meeting the 25 percent of retirees’ deferred pension pay is difficult, take a closer look at the colossal financial necessity that equally turns into another major fiscal challenge ahead. We were all smiles during initial receipt of more money for this program. Reality has set in and all smiles turn into frowns of constipation as we debate source of funds to cover this eventuality.

Imagine as families buckle down to deciding which obligation to pay or sacrifice each payday. Will it be power bills, food, loan for the first family home, family transportation, costly health bills, and other must-pay obligations?

Why am I spouting about these? You know the answer like the back of your hand!

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