GIVING Tinian $2 million in Compact Impact funds became an “issue” because 1) Saipan senators are upset that the governor did not do anything to clean up the mess they created after three failed attempts to change the Senate leadership; and 2) because the House leaders are still grieving over the budget cuts that affected their ability to hire constituents and rent tables and tents for rosaries.
Of course, you can never impress voters with these reasons, and that is why the lawmakers are insisting that it is all about “the need to be fair to Saipan.” However, if the Saipan lawmakers REALLY want to find a solution to most of their concerns, then they should try to finally move on and tackle the CNMI’s more pressing problems.
Here’s how to do it. The Saipan senators should admit that their beef with their leadership is beyond the governor’s control. To begin with, if the Saipan senators did not try to pit Rota against Tinian, and then Tinian against Rota, the Senate vice presidency and the floor leadership would still be held by Saipan. The Saipan senators should now act like the veteran politicians that they are and accept the political consequences of their past actions. Nothing, at any rate, prevents them from returning to the leadership bloc.
The House leaders, for their part, must help the government find more money as we have repeatedly urged them to do. This cannot be done if all they want to do is to make the administration’s life more miserable. We must, to be sure, concede that the House leaders deserve, at the very least, an explanation from the Office of the Governor. Why, indeed, were their budgets cut by 16 percent and not 8 percent as was announced earlier? But while waiting for the administration’s answer, we hope that the House leaders would also realize that there are other ways to score political points at the administration’s expense—depriving Tinian students of their high school is not one of them.
America’s compacts with the Freely Associated States “impact” the CNMI. Tinian is part of the CNMI and if there is no public high school on that island where will the students go? To Saipan’s overcrowded schools, of course. If the Saipan lawmakers REALLY want to lessen the impact on their island they should help Tinian and Rota acquire the necessary infrastructure and level of public services that could somewhat ease Saipan’s current burden.
Saipan’s lawmakers know this, and this is why their “concern” regarding the $2 million that went to Tinian sounded SO hollow. The speaker himself was quoted as saying that other than the Compact Impact funds, there is money for the Tinian school project. In other words, now that Tinian has the $2 million, Saipan can use the money that would have been appropriated for Tinian’s school project anyway.
So what’s the fuss all about again?
