Taxpayer rights

Whether or not Senator Ramon Kumoi improperly benefited from his former employment at CUC, the good Senator must be commended for speaking out against financial abuses in the Senate and throughout government. In his capacity as an elected representative of the people, Senator Kumoi is right to look after the best interests of the CNMI taxpayer.

After all, the people of the CNMI certainly deserve to know whether their hard-earned tax dollars are actually squandered on private cable T.V. subscriptions, airline tickets, flowers costs, telephone expenses, and restaurant bills. Senator Kumoi should be celebrated for bringing these sordid activities to light.

At the same time, the Senator should not be excused for any fiscal acts of malfeasance he may have committed during his tenure at CUC. Senator Kumoi’s political opponents, regardless of their intent, must also be commended for raising these issues, which should be duly investigated.

If Senator Kumoi is guilty of any improprieties, then he must suffer and bear the dire legal consequences. Taxpayer abuse must not be tolerated; indeed, it must be eradicated.

But the issue of taxpayer abuse, properly understood, extends quite beyond these rather obvious and egregious examples. We must go further than the obvious cases of abuses and strike at the very heart of the matter.

It is, no doubt, utterly deplorable for a former finance chief, for example, to go to Manila and stick the CNMI taxpayer with $999.04 in entertainment expenses incurred at the “Pharaoh Business and Entertainment Center” in Makati, as the public auditor has reported. It is equally deplorable for that same former public official to force us to reimburse him for $2.36 in Philippine baggage cart rental charges. (Let him be a man and carry his own darn bags.)

But why should CNMI taxpayer abuse (and outrage, if any) stop at that? In other words, if it is wrong for a public official to force the taxpayer to subsidize private cable TV subscriptions and Manila ladies’ drink fees, for which he derives absolutely no personal benefit, then why would it be right for that same taxpayer to be forced into subsidizing public education if he has no kids (or no kids at the PSS)?

If the taxpayer’s best interests are to be protected, as Senator Kumoi has suggested, then they should be protected to the fullest. The taxpayer should not be forced into paying $940.40 for a government official’s food expenses at the “Manila Seafood Market.” He should not be forced into paying for the funeral and rosary expenses of a citizen he might not even know or like while alive. In short, he should not be abused by being forced into paying for anything that does not personally benefit him in some form or another. The taxpayer’s rights and choices must always be protected.