By “reform” I don’t mean a few token layoffs or temporary furloughs or minor reductions in the work week or salaries. I mean major reform beginning with a complete governmental restructuring and a zero-based budget process that requires every manager at every level to justify every personnel position and every proposed expenditure. No more acceptance of a governmental structure wherein redundancies and useless entities abound just because “we’ve always done it that way.” No more reliance on past budgetary history or levels — every newly justified agency and department starts from zero and builds the next budget incrementally with full explanation and justification.
It’s not hard to understand why the governor has the support of island associations with for-profit membership. They all stand to reap windfall profits during the short but extremely lucrative feeding frenzy when that freshly-borrowed tax refund money hits the street. Those folks care not one iota about the wellbeing of those from whom they’ll profit or about the unconscionable long-term debt burden foisted upon a gullible public. They remain totally focused on their bottom lines.
They can safely do that for the same reason that Guam bond sales proceed so well, despite the junk-bond rating. Investors who buy the bonds, and those who encourage more borrowing, are convinced the Feds will always bail out GovGuam no matter how badly it screws things up. Make no mistake — if the Stars and Stripes were not waving overhead, things would be quite different.
We’ve watched similar scenarios play out in the past. Within a year or two, that part of the money that wasn’t diverted to fund government operations (i.e. payroll) will be all gone and folks will again be owed overdue tax refunds. Remember when Governor Camacho borrowed $473.5 million, of which $271.1 million was to be used for “tax refunds and other debts?” It’s a shame that custom and long practice, coupled with a general ignorance of how the system should work, causes so many to play into the hands of GovGuam politicians year after year after year.
The simple remedy, of course, is for taxpayers to change W-4 withholding statements to provide for an approximate break-even tax situation at year’s end. Instead, tens of thousands of Guam taxpayers look forward to their refund as a sort of “Christmas Club” fund to be used for that which they’ve deprived themselves of for the rest of the year. The fact that it no longer works like that hasn’t yet sunk in for most of them; hence the poignant overdue-refund laments.
An upcoming editorial will detail just how far off the charts the GovGuam public debt really is. If the real, authenticated facts and figures don’t make your eyes water, then you’re probably a GovGuam employee with an advanced accounting degree and already know about it.
DAVE DAVIS
Yigo, Guam
