This is well and good, but I wonder if this is an attempt to look for scapegoats on the part of the good senator to erase, or at least minimize, the perception that elected officials have not done anything to lower the unemployment rate (which actually does not measure those who have stopped looking for work), currently sitting at a record high of 13 percent? That somehow H-laborers are taking jobs away from local folks is the play here, I believe, and it is the worst kind of politics as it deflects blame from those who are supposed to rejuvenate the moribund economy, but instead have only placed stumbling blocks along the way, as far as the military buildup is concerned.
To the senator’s credit, though, he has said that he is for developing and enhancing the tourism industry. But that industry is a fickle one, even in the best of times. Related to that, there has been a clamor on the part of both the administration and some in the service sector, for a China-Russia visa waiver as one solution to easing the economic pain in the private sector and GovGuam.
Regarding that, I have two questions:
How is it that most of the same folks who view suspiciously temporary foreign workers suddenly embrace temporary foreign visitors as the solution, or at least one of the solutions, to Guam’s economic woes?
What gives them the confidence, given the high emigration rate from the People’s Republic of China (from 2008 to 2010, there has been a 100 percent increase) that those tourists will not become a burden to the economy?
MATT PHILIPS
Mangilao, Guam
