By Dave Davis
For Variety

LAST week in this column, we discussed some of the details on how our GovGuam “leaders” have, for decades, manipulated real property tax values in furtherance of political agendas. The issue of long-overdue property appraisals caught public attention early in 2002, when then-Governor Gutierrez tried to jam a $427 million Retirement Fund bailout bond down our collective throats.
Interestingly, Governor Camacho’s current borrowing schemes rely mostly on a recycling of the same bogus information from a GEDCA dog-and-pony show at that time.
Camacho, then an influential member of the legislature, protested long and loudly that (1) we couldn’t afford it, and (2) maybe it wasn’t legal. He wasn’t alone in his opinion: the plan died in the legislature. He has now reversed his position.
What’s changed since then? Are we financially better off — somehow better able to pay off an enormous loan? Has the law changed? Obviously, none of the above. He had ample opportunity then, and at any point since then, to initiate action needed to bring GovGuam into compliance with federal and Guam law bearing on our debt limit and borrowing authority. He chose to do nothing, and must now deal with the results of that inaction.
It appears that he’s eager to exacerbate and compound the decades-long flouting of law — to saddle this and future generations with monstrous debt to further current agendas and divert attention from empty campaign promises.
Our first elected attorney general, Douglas Moylan, on the other hand, took the high road: something that he could not have done as a political appointee. He held to the position that if we wish to present ourselves as a reputable society, within a nation of laws, observance of those laws must start at the top. He has been fully vindicated by the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision on Guam’s public debt limit, and should be applauded and commended for his courageous and unpopular stance on the issue. As more underlying facts come to light, and the true extent of years of official deception revealed, he must be seen as a true champion of the people of Guam.
Meanwhile, the governor and legislature, paralyzed by indecision and ambivalence, seek positions from which to blame the other when the inevitable layoffs occur. In one thing we must be vigilant and firm: an absolute moratorium must be placed on further borrowing, revenue bonds excepted, until such time as public debt is brought into compliance with the Organic Act limitation.
The moratorium must specifically apply to borrowings against anticipated tax or similar revenues, including “Section 30” money, which don’t qualify under the “public improvements or undertakings” criterion that defines and describes legitimate revenue bonds.