More risky government schemes

The CNMI government is in great financial distress. It cannot afford to pay its CUC utility bills on time. It owes Straub Hawaii and other medical facilities as much as $4 million. It owes the CNMI Retirement Fund as much as $30 million. It is hopelessly incapable of promptly paying CNMI tax rebates.
It takes forever to pay off its private contractors. It is tens of millions of dollars in debt–deep in the red–and it runs a budget deficit each and every year.

Yet, despite the overwhelming evidence of government financial decay, Democratic Representative Brigida Ichihara, a self-styled education czar and ardent Jesse Borja-for-governor supporter, apparently wishes to plunge the CNMI government and its beleaguered taxpayers further into financial ruin. Merely observe her moves to drastically raise the Public School System’s take of the CNMI budget from fifteen to twenty-five percent. In light of the CNMI government’s serious and persistent financial problems, how much more unreasonable can an elected representative get?

Indeed, it is quite obvious that, unlike House Speaker Ben Fitial, who has very wisely expressed some grave concerns on the matter, Rep. Ichihara and her PSS ilk have no appreciation of fundamental financial solvency. Unlike Speaker Fitial, a well seasoned and highly successful businessman, these hard-core education diehards apparently know next to nothing about basic economics.
They have obviously never run businesses or met private payrolls. Oddly, for all of their higher “education”–and keep in mind that Rep. Ichihara was a former school principal–they cannot even come to grips with basic, elementary mathematics.

After all, it does not take an economist the caliber of Mr. Ed Stephens Jr. to figure out that the CNMI simply cannot afford an extravagant PSS budget hike at this time–nor at any point in the near future. Due to wholesale mismanagement, the local government is practically broke.

But our socialist public education zealots don’t care for objective economic realities (or analysis). They want to tug our heartstrings with emotional education pleas.
“It’s for the children, for our children’s future,” etc. They want to advance feel-good politics at the expense of the cold, hard facts, which they would much rather conveniently ignore at the CNMI’s own peril.

Where are we going to get the money to pay for Rep. Ichihara’s risky PSS scheme? Where are we going to get the money to satisfy the deeply entrenched, very special interest groups at the Public School System?

Are we to raid the CNMI Retirement Fund (and its retirees) to add to the insatiable PSS empire? Is the money going to come from the medical program? Are we going to let Tun Juan die, just so that the PSS establishment can “educate” little Johnny?
Just say no to PSS.