Consequences
NOT to sound disrespectful, but perhaps it’s time for some government officials to re-learn the main lesson of checkers: there are consequences for every move you make, but if you think it through you can anticipate at least the most obvious ones. If you’re CPA, for example, you should have foreseen the most likely reaction of the only airline providing inter-island flights if you set a 30-day deadline and demand that it pays $1.2 million in airport fees, which are the subject of an ongoing legal dispute.
Perhaps — and we sure hope so — CPA and Star Marianas can now return to the negotiating table and arrive at a settlement. But surely that could have been done without adding to the worries and uncertainties of local residents — including those with medical issues — who rely on regular inter-island flights.
We are also hoping that CPA and the administration knew that the reimplementation of the old airport rates would cost this cash-strapped government close to $1 million, and that there is a funding source for that amount. Right?
Right?
Foreseen
BY now, the consequences of the governor’s pivot policy, which he first announced in March 2023, should be painfully obvious to anyone whose government job is not federally funded. The governor himself has spelled it out in an interview with Voice of America early this year:
“We’ve had to make drastic sacrifices in government operations and public services,” he said. “People are leaving the Commonwealth because of the depressed state of the economy right now, because of the major impact of losing close to half-a-billion to a billion dollars’ worth of economic activities.”
For a more detailed consequences of a sputtering economy and budget cuts, feel free to watch the FY 2025 budget hearings on YouTube.
And what is the administration and its legislative allies’ preferred “solutions” to the government’s budget crunch? They have two, actually.
The first is to blame their predecessors. This was also the entirety of their campaign in the 2022 election, which they won big time, mostly because a vast majority of the electorate believed that the InDems, as they themselves indicated, would solve the problems they knew they would inherit.
Their second “solution” is to impose new and/or raise taxes/fees — in this economy.
The consequence of pointing fingers while already holding the reins of government is widespread disappointment among the general public. Apparently, the current leadership intends to allay the people’s concerns not with a better economic policy, but by constantly reminding us that the previous leadership was so much worse. Don’t you feel better already?
As for the consequence of imposing additional burdens on taxpayers amid a gasping economy: it would likely include higher prices, fewer sales on the part of businesses, more downsizing, more pay cuts, more job losses, more business closures, more people leaving the islands, a smaller workforce, more deficit spending, more unpaid government vendors and a further decline in government revenue.
To be sure, to quote the governor, it’s not the end of the world. But who said it is? The business community warned about an economic collapse not Armageddon. Nevertheless, the current situation should dispel any illusion that many of us once had regarding this leadership’s level of competence. It seems they are determined to drive the government off the fiscal cliff in hot pursuit of the supposed long-term benefits of their pivot policy.
