Those opposed to the ill-conceived proposals of this administration and its legislative allies must also have a better plan. However, the problem seems to be that there are so many critical issues facing the commonwealth that it is difficult to know which should get priority: mounting utility rates, the increasing cost of doing business, unemployment, the Retirement Fund, inadequate public services, dwindling federal handouts…
Interior officials traveled all the way from D.C. to remind the CNMI that it cannot rely on the U.S. government to the extent that it has in the past owing to severe federal budget constraints. According to Interior, this means the CNMI must “do more with less.” This news is not new. That federal assistance would dry up in a few short years was clear when TARP and other rescue packages barely passed the U.S. Congress two years ago.
How the CNMI will manage when so many local government agencies are mismanaged is the big question. Based on various economic projections, the private sector will see diminished profits in 2012 resulting in reduced sales and employment. Increased water and power rates will cripple households and companies, forcing many small businesses to close, and with it the opportunity for increased local employment.
The administration isn’t helping matters by withholding full compensation to federally paid positions — it is money that could be circulating in the economy. Austerity measures should also exempt all emergency service employees, but this is not the case. There is no fairness argument here.
Emergency service employees at the ports, DPS and the hospital should be exempt from all austerity considerations. They are essential and these posts should be manned 24/7. Not to do so puts the CNMI and its people at risk.
Exemptions should also be extended to customs services because it generates revenue. Businesses should not have to wait days and days to clear customs. This is a loss of sales to business and revenue to the government.
Each year from time immemorial, CNMI officials and the business community ask just what the government can do to be more responsive to the private sector. How about downsizing the Legislature, abolishing municipal offices and cutting the size of the entire government to half while retaining essential service employees? That would go a long way to achieving the right degree of efficiency and productivity.
Right now, there are many qualified government employees who aren’t recognized for their contributions or adequately compensated for their time. This will continue as long as the leadership is unable or unwilling to make qualitative decisions about which jobs are essential or not. Excellence should be rewarded; deadwood must be discarded.
But because politicians are unwilling to make these distinctions, hardworking and essential employees will continue to bear the weight of nonproductive and nonessential personnel. The deserving will be deprived of what is their due. This is the method by which the government operates, and politicians call it “fairness.”
