The Earn Income Credit Fiasco

We seem to have the ability to exercise the attitude of warpedly generous social democrats who believe in robbing its productive citizens to subsidize the livelihood of healthy though lazy bunch.

While we sport such juvenile attitude, we equally have met the enemy: a major contraction in revenue generation which tells us that we can ill-afford such generosity that benefits only 45 families here. The rest of the recipients are from neighboring islands of Micronesia some of whom have returned home but still have checks in the thousands of dollars being issued to them.

The budget crunch has brought us to our knees juggling funds here and there to meet basic or the most essential public services. This phenomenon has reached the “push comes to shove” to the latter level.

We quiz just how far must local taxes from productive citizens be earmarked to accommodate others who have flocked to these isles since 1978 to take advantage of locally or federally subsidized federal programs.

There are locals too who are capable of working as productive citizens, but have apparently learned to milk the system taking home a cumulative $21,000 a year in combined EIC and other social assistance checks. This is very unhealthy for both the citizen who’s turned living off productive citizens’ hard earned tax contributions into an art and the local government whose financial straits are far more serious that meets the eye.

Policymakers need to revisit this issue. In order that we veer off encouraging our own people and friends from nearby island nations to be helplessly reliant on taxes coughed out by productive members of this community, specific appropriations be earmarked for the 45 indigenous families who really deserve such assistance. And even though such funds may be intended for the indigenous people, a more stringent set of criteria is needed to weed out those who have decided to feed-off the hard-earned taxes of productive citizens.

Frankly, it’s time that we put our house in order to avoid a case of bankruptcy born out of our penchant to generously sacrifice the work of productive citizens in the Northern Marianas Community. As difficult as it may be facing and disposing of real issues, it would be foolhardy to continuously pretend that we can fork out money with an empty wallet.

The resolution of this issue requires real leadership. Definitely, productive citizens ask for nothing less than thoroughly reasoned policies on this matter. We look forward to a positive decision from our men of wisdom. Si Yuus Maase`!