By Zaldy Dandan
Variety Editor

Adding insult to injury

THIS Legislature is the government’s, not the people’s, Legislature. Without much notice or a public hearing, lawmakers have passed a measure requiring taxpayers to apply for their rebates within a certain timeframe — never mind that the government ignores its own existing law for payment of rebates within a specified period following a given tax year.
This legislation allows the government to withhold rebate payments to cover power bills. This adds insult to injury. The government is not paying your tax rebates or refunds within the timeframes specified by law, but now requires you to apply for rebates over and above the actual filing of tax forms.
Public sentiment is shifting away from business as usual and toward government and community actions that serve the people’s interest — which is not served by enacting changes to tax provisions without adequate public notice or public hearings. The people’s interest, moreover, is not served by a government that has not, by its own admission, done enough to cut waste. Cutting telephone lines and cell phone service is not enough. The administration has continued to hire nonessential personnel even as it cuts salaries for many other government employees. This makes a mockery of the personal financial sacrifices that these employees have to make, and the cost-cutting measures this governor claims to implement.

Enough already

A DELEGATION has been dispatched to Washington, D.C. to lobby for smaller incremental increases in the minimum wage over a longer period of time. Local business and government leaders agree that the U.S. congressional proposal would mean ruin for an economy that has been shrinking since 1998. Additional job losses are imminent, and more economic contraction is expected.
There seems to be general agreement regarding the repercussions of a federal wage hike, but there is a real division of opinion about whether this is enough of a reason to oppose the measure.
Still, whatever the U.S. Congress does on the minimum wage bill doesn’t change the fact that real and fundamental changes must occur in the CNMI for progress to finally occur. The size of government must be reduced. Economic diversification should be pursued. And voters should, by now, have had enough of leaders who say one thing, while doing another, and who still cling to old and tired solutions to resolve ever worsening problems.

Compromising education

EDUCATION officials must redouble their efforts to improve the learning environment by spending money in the classrooms and not on pet projects. Rather than delay the full implementation of highly qualified teacher requirements, the Board of Education should reset the deadlines for an earlier compliance date.
However, it seems to be more important for BOE members and PSS to compromise the education of the children in order to accommodate the interest of a minority of teachers who haven’t passed Praxis.
Another reason why the CNMI cannot achieve progress.

Paging DPS

WITH the commissioner of public safety off-island on a protracted vacation and the police focused on solving one homicide case, copper thieves appeared to be striking at will. But then, finally, an arrest was made on Monday, which the community hopes will be the beginning of the end of this rampant thievery.
Assaults on tourists, however, are on the rise again, and this is extremely harmful to the CNMI’s reputation as a safe destination for travelers, which is a big consideration for Japanese travelers.
The DPS commissioner may want to set her sights on a goal that is more substantial than a “smooth tsunami warning evacuation.” Like going after these snatchers, for example.