But at least Ambrodamus has been vindicated AGAIN about the REFORMs thanks to the Feds & our Delegate. It is now clear from “Our-Fathers-In-Washington” the CNMI must implement real Reforms if “Federal Bailouts are to continue”. Heck MVA is now saying it may take one or two years for our Tourism Industry to turn around after they spent half-a-million on Branding — duh! If WE, the CNMI, don’t do anything to drastically change our present course WE will end up nowhere & with nothing NEW! Reforms are also a “two-edge sword” in cutting & creating new money, as for the longest-of-time I’ve written about our leader’s inability to “walk & chew gum” as everything now is on CUTS but who is working on New Money??? Our Delegate already told us how our leaders feel about progress “just WAIT and things will turn around” — LAZY and refusing to even TRY and score FOR the People! Well, I’m sure most teachers stress the point whenever they can to students that “they are the masters of their fate so reach & shoot for the stars” but it seems our leaders have forgotten this all-important attribute of “self-development” taught in grade-school to promote “human self-esteem & achievement.” No one seems to be searching, calling, writing or emailing potential investors because No One wants to CHAMPION Anything New & Better FOR the CNMI & Her People, which is the TRUE travesty Coming Home to Roost! This down-turn in our Economy is the most important time to search for CHANGE & IMPROVEMENTS, as there are all kinds of investors out there who can’t say yes if WE never ask. Yet our leaders are figuratively “acting like they want a job (investors) but won’t bother to fill out the application” — duh!
Well, the Feds have sent the message loud and clear through our Delegate for “the CNMI to Reform or Else”! Our Reforms can’t be just about the bureaucracy of “downsizing & making cuts” which is pretty much straightforward and even outlined in the Economic Road Map. But Reforms are also about as I stated in a previous Op ed on “HOW to create New Revenues” that requires a real Economic Think-Tank process to generate a viable plan to execute. I was hoping the firm MVA hired would be showing the CNMI various methodologies for generating “new tourists & new investors,” but they’ve gone silent since their visit and getting paid. The TRUTH is also Coming Home to Roost with the Cannabis Commission with tax revenues DOWN 80%, which PROVES Ambrodamus was RIGHT again! The CNMI is facing all kinds of deficit challenges directly & adversely affecting Government Employees and yet our leaders can’t dissolve the WASTE in revenues on the Cannabis Commission into existing Government Operations and dissolve the existing Casino Commissions into ONE Elected Gaming Commission in time for the New Gaming Commissioners to be on this year’s ballot. WE, the CNMI is already behind in Reforms, and one would think that someone would want to Champion these two straight-forward issues FOR the People.
They keep putting Band-Aids on permanent problems that figuratively need surgery! But it can’t be that hard to draft the “Legislative-Surgery” for both Commissions to be dissolved accordingly. However, the problem is no one has the NERVE because Ambrodamus is and has been the ONLY one pushing for the “Right Reforms of permanent solutions to these two permanent problems”! It’s so obvious how the CNMI suffers from its own bigotry at the highest level of our society that is really contradictory to how the “regular folks-in-the-cheap-seats” who appreciate Ambrodamus and now the Truth is clearly Coming Home to Roost with these two commissions. There is also the TRUTH about the MACS Deal that is coming home to Roost, as Medical Referral Patients are flying “United,” not MACS like WE were told would happen. So, WHEN is there going to be a genuine Oversight Hearing on OUR 22 yrs. of taxes for promises yet to even begin being delivered. But just keep ignoring Ambrodamus and history of the CNMI will certainly make real comparisons to Nostradamus in the many predictions I’ve made that continue to Come Home to Roost!
One People, One Direction
Ambrose M. Bennett is an Economist who minored in Sociology, a Political Scientist, a retired teacher & former CNMI Board of Education Member, a James Madison Fellow (U.S. Constitutional Scholar), a Fulbright-Hays-Lifetime Humanities & Religious Scholar who resides in Kagman III in the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.
