The horror files

“We have been very cooperative with the business community (!), but
certainly we are not going to repeal all these laws because they have been
in place for a very good reason–that is, to place controls.”

–Speaker Diego Benavente, in a bout of circular reasoning

Yesterday’s Saipan Tribune featured the following headline on page 3: “Legislative leaders defend business laws.” The news article, in part, read as follows: ” . . . House Speaker Diego T. Benavente dismissed criticism that the legislature has been passing laws restrictive to the growth of the economy, saying that the measures were put in place to check uncontrolled growth.”

To check ‘uncontrolled growth’? Pardon me, but the CNMI is in absolutely no danger of being victimized (or violated) by ‘uncontrolled growth’ or ‘runaway economic development.’ In fact, at this point in our protracted recession, we could really use some uncontrolled economic growth right now.

According to MVA figures, the CNMI has suffered double digit tourist percentage declines every single month last year. The Korean tourist market alone has virtually evaporated overnight. And yet House Speaker Diego T. Benavente, incredibly enough, is still worried about the horrible prospect of uncontrolled economic growth and development! (Stop the money flowing in! Stop it now! Please stop it. I can’t stand a rich and vibrant economy! Someone please control it before it’s too late!) Surely the man must be completely out of his mind.

To be sure, Speaker Diego T. Benavente has made a totally outrageous, irresponsible and reckless remark. (And this isn’t the first time he has made such an abominable remark.) The Congressman is decidedly not pro-business; he is anti-business and hence anti-CNMI. What he advocates is pure, sheer folly; his policies are clearly not directed towards producing a sound, thriving, booming and prosperous modern economy. Mr. Benavente, I am sorry to say, might as well work for the US Department of Interior, Office of Insular Affairs.

Unfortunately, House Speaker Diego T. Benavente is not the only local politician making such outlandish statements. In a Marianas Variety news story last week, one CNMI Senator actually “noted that under the current situation, parents face a choice of either sacrificing income or the care of their children.” What a truly amazing revelation!

In other words, parents can either choose to accumulate more money or spend their income and savings (sacrifice) on having children and raising a family. Apparently, this represents an unacceptable choice to our compassionate Senator, who wishes to protect parents from having to make such a terrible, God-awful choice, by providing state-sponsored child daycare facilities for every CNMI family. Crazy.