DURING a recent meeting between the Governor’s Council of Economic Advisers or GCEA and House members, there were at least two comments made by two lawmakers that I considered “interesting.”
The first was a lawmaker’s question about a “one-stop shop” for prospective investors. Now that took me back…way back. Over 20 years ago. The NMI was reeling from the economic downturn that began here in 1998 following the Asian currency crisis. To their credit, the then-new administration and its legislative allies were introducing and passing several business/investor-friendly measures in consultation with the business community and economists. (The governor’s economic advisory council back then was known as the Strategic Economic Development Council. Among its major policy goals: the creation of free trade zones, tax incentives for new and “desirable” investors [specifically, technology-oriented businesses], developing new tourist attractions, increasing air service to the NMI, and “enhancing” its image “as a first class destination.”)
One of the legislative proposals would establish a one-stop shop which was “envisioned” to “facilitate and expedite business investment,” and create “an orderly, simplified and progressive economic growth.”
For its part, CDA (now CEDA) said it was “beefing up efforts for the fast-tracked creation of the proposed [one-stop] shop center that will handle business information and the needs of potential investors….”
That was in the year 2000.
Today, the current economic crisis is so much worse than what the NMI went through in 1998-2012. Without ARPA and other federal funds, the islands would most likely return to a TT-era economy. Here’s how the late great NMI economist William H. Stewart once described those good old days: “When I arrived on Saipan in August of 1970, there wasn’t an economy. The [U.S.-administered] Trust Territory headquarters provided the economic engine for the Northern Marianas…. I don’t know if you recall, but the airport was a tin shack, unlighted runway. We’ve got one airplane a day. We had one cargo ship a month.”
Happily, over two decades after the idea was first mentioned and “seriously considered,” we’re again talking about a one-stop shop for new investors.
Incidentally, in 2004, the third year of the CNMI’s original “hope! change!” administration, an economist with the local Department of Commerce advised the public that “the increased prices of fuel, with its domino effect on goods and services, would mean lesser buying power for the dollar, at least in the next few months.” In October 2004, the island’s fuel price had “soared” to $2.899 per gallon. The then-Commerce secretary said “consumers should look at what’s happening in the world. ‘We’re not just tiny islands surrounded by water. Everything that happens internationally affects us.’ ” His “solution” to the ever rising fuel prices?
“The government should look at mass transportation,” he said. “We need to make serious decisions now and not later.” He added that his department was “in the process of drafting a plan for a mass transportation system on Saipan.” The government “is not in the position to purchase new vehicles for a public transportation system,” but “mass transportation run by private companies would afford these firms a viable business venture, which would help enhance economic activities.”
If I had a dime for every time I hear a government official and/or politician use “plan,” “viable” and “enhance” in a sentence, I’d be driving a Tesla Roadster already.
As for the second “interesting” comment made by a lawmaker during the recent meeting with the GCEA:
“These businesses [at the Marpi tourist sites]…the fruit vendors — those guys were making money and were not paying any rent up in the north or they just pay their regular business license and their driver’s license….”
What do you call a government-run store?
Bankrupt — unless heavily subsidized and/or “protected” from private sector competitors.
The lawmaker’s complaint about small businesses that should pay more fees/taxes so elected officials/politicians can spend more on voters (mainly by hiring them) reminds me of what a U.S. lawmaker (a Democrat, of course) once said: Government has all the money it needs; government just needs to collect it. In other words, “What’s yours is mine.”
Says political writer Kevin D. Williamson: “Nobody in Washington understands what it takes to make an iPhone or a pound of upland cotton, but they do know how to get in the way, how to hold up one hand and say ‘No!’ while holding out the other hand and saying ‘Pay!’ ”
And no. Don’t get me started on the Universal Rainbows and Unicorns Garbage Collection Plan.
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