EXCESSIVE and unnecessary government expenditures must stop, Democratic Rep. Celina Babauta said.
In an interview, Babauta, who is seeking one of Saipan’s two Senate seats, said Republican Gov. Ralph DLG Torres has repeatedly asked the House of Representatives to come up with revenue generating bills.
Babauta said, “We [in the House] take the position that it is important to curtail expenses.”
She said there has been an “exponential” increase in the expenses of the government in the last two years of the Torres administration. The government must “trim down all those [excessive] and unnecessary expenses,” she added.
The revenue-generating measure that she said the governor has recommended to the Legislature involves taxing people, which “nobody wants [to do]; not us, not the community because it will hurt them further if we increase taxes anywhere.”
Babauta said it appears that right now, the only way to increase government revenue is to impose taxes.
At the “request” of the governor, she said the House included tax hikes on tobacco and sugared beverages in the fiscal year 2023 budget bill, which they passed unanimously. The bill is now pending in the Senate.
“The governor wants us to tax people,” she said, adding that she has “reservations” about the proposed tax hikes, but she noted that the budget bill has a “sunset provision”: the tax hike will expire at the end of fiscal year 2023.
As for reviving the local economy, Babauta said, “It is nearly impossible to bring in new investors at this point because they are also trying to recover [in] their own countries or region.”
Asked about the coming election, Babauta said the NMI Democratic Party’s campaign momentum is strong, “and it has never weakened.”
She said they continue to serve the people though their work in the House. “I pray that our people in the community see the work that we have done in the House,” she added.
“If the people want change they can vote for the people who really work for them,” she said.
Reps. Celina Babauta, right, and Donald Manglona read a document on her laptop during a House session earlier this year.
