The very next day, apparently, it tells the members of the Legislature — but not Fund members — that Fund members will lose their life insurance coverage if the Legislature does not give the Fund relief. Why didn’t Mark Aguon, outgoing executive director of the Fund, who spoke on both occasions, mention this minor detail to the retirees on Thursday? Why did he leave it for them to discover only in the newspaper?
And, what kind of blackmail is this anyway?
Surely there are alternatives! Surely it’s not an absolute black and white situation? How about some negotiation along the way?
The pattern that is developing in the administration is truly frightening.
Last week, the governor created an “emergency” — one that wasn’t real, because he and his cohorts had to know it was coming — by declaring that only essential employees would receive their paychecks on time unless the Legislature gave him unlimited re-programming authority.
Again, blackmail! No advance notice. No alternatives. No negotiation — the demand was absolute.
The administration (and please note that it was the acting governor who had to play bad guy here) forced our unfortunately spineless Legislature — with no advance notice, no time or opportunity to reason or to bargain —into granting unprecedented powers to the governor — which it promptly did, without even a squeak.
For shame!
Before that, it was the threat of rolling power outages — another artificially created emergency that could not have been unexpected.
For shame, for shame!
What is it that is so sacrosanct about tax rebates, anyway? I can understand protecting refunds (how weird that refunds, but not life insurance, or jobs, or contracts, or so many other debts/liabilities gets protected!) but rebates?
Those, among many other over-generous bennies, should have been reduced, if not done away, with. long ago!
More to the point, perhaps: what will it take to change this disgraceful behavior on the part of the administration, our legislators? Maybe we should all call on our legislators and demand they stop playing rubber stamp?
RUTH TIGHE
Tanapag, Saipan
