It’s one darn thing…
HERE’S how retirees can finally receive their Christmas holiday bonuses in April: the House and the Senate should pass the required resolution or bill that the governor can sign.
This may be news for some politicians, but good intentions count for nothing — results are all. You’re supposed to get things done, not talk about why you can’t.
In the case of the retirees’ bonuses, everyone says the funds exist, and everyone says the retirees should get their money. Then please give it to them already.
The House says it has grave concerns. Fine. So why can’t the House and Senate leaders and their lawyers meet behind closed doors informally — not as a conference committee — and draft a compromise version of the resolution or bill that they could then pass ASAP.
Instead, the House decided to sit on the Senate resolution in December, and since then, House members have repeatedly and publicly declared that the senators got it all wrong and/or were doing it the wrong way, and should just do what the House told the Senate to do.
And after repeatedly and publicly denigrating their senatorial colleagues’ proposals, the magnanimous House members have also declared that they are willing to “sit down” with the same senators.
Meanwhile, the retirees — remember them? — are still waiting for their bonuses.
To recap:
Elected officials are unable and/or unwilling to do what they say, again and again, should be done and could be done.
And these are the same politicians who are promising to “address” the CNMI’s truly major problems.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, I’ll vote for you.
…after another
IT’S the same thing with the Senate impeachment trial. The House and the Senate say they want it to proceed and that they’re ready, and that there should be no more delay.
But they’re still arguing — through the media — and there’s still no trial.
To be sure, the Senate rules are not what the House says the rules should be. But the rules, however disagreeable to the House, provide for a House prosecutor. So that the trial can finally begin, a House member should accept the Senate president’s appointment — under protest, of course. The House prosecuting team created by the speaker should still show up in the Senate chamber during trial. The House prosecutor should then do his or her job as best as s/he can.
But it seems that the House and the Senate prefer to continue their political game of chicken which is interesting only to rabid partisans.
In any case, the governor was impeached because 15 members of the House want someone else for governor. He is likely to be acquitted in the Senate because his political allies are the majority bloc there.
In November, the people, that is, the voters, will finally have their say. May they say it loud and clear. If not, there’s always another election.
