This reminded me of the governor’s main argument for the enactment of his notorious labor law, P.L. 15-108, which was supposedly to “attract” more locals to private sector jobs. Yet he remains opposed to a wage hike, which will benefit the locals already working in the private sector, or are still waiting for their relatives in the government to give them jobs. But then again, the real “goal” of P.L. 15-108, as this paper repeatedly pointed out, was to show the feds that the CNMI was really really really really serious about reforming its labor and immigration policies. Really. But the feds had heard it all before and went ahead to pass the federalization law.
The governor then shifted gears and is now arguing that the federalization law is bad for the CNMI because guest workers — the supposed “targets” of P.L. 15-108 — will be forced to leave after 2014 and the commonwealth really really really really needs its guest workers. Really.
So what happened to P.L. 15-108’s lofty aim of ensuring that locals get private sector jobs?
As I’ve written before, the governor should just fess up and admit he believes that the CNMI labor and immigration system is a “win-win” scenario for locals and guest workers. Locals won’t have to take low-paying jobs which means that guest workers will retain theirs. Sure, it seems “un-American” to have a large nonresident population that will never get residency rights no matter how long they stay here. But then again, guest workers are, uh, vigorously procreational, and soon, their U.S. citizen kids will be 21 and able to “petition” their parents. The CNMI will then have a more varied electorate, more new recruits for the U.S. military while the local gene pool continues to be replenished by those wonderful, Russian, blue-eyed, long-legged blondes, which, in turn, will vastly improve the chances of the commonwealth to one day win the Miss Universe title.
Come on; what is there not to like?
But, you ask, what about the long-term sustainability of a huge government that provides First World salaries and benefits that have to be funded by a Third World economy?
The governor can reply, “We’ll just wing it.” He can tell the feds, “Look, our government has been practically bankrupt since 1998, but we’re still hiring new employees and signing new contracts. Government agencies still provide crucial public services, which are deteriorating, true, so just keep giving us federal grants while we figure out more ways to get more money, probably through raiding MPLT’s moolah or getting rid of that ridiculous constitutional provision that prevents our government from borrowing money for its operations.”
The beauty of this line of argument is that it cuts through the usual b.s. that everyone now expects from the administration.
It’s like a, well, whiff of fresh air.
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