Approach to deficit reduction

For years, we held the superficial notion that the good times would roll in perpetuity. We lived lavishly like a happy grasshopper. We treated the Asian crisis like an inconsequential cotton ball flying through the air. Then came the deafening tidings of revenue decline and the closure of tourist-related businesses of more than 2000.

I hope that the balance of the economy would hold steady and sturdy lest we would be peddling pencils and empty beer cans along beach road. I also hope that it wouldn’t come down to robbery and murder in order that families have something to put on the dinner table. The bad times are here and bound to get worse before it gets any better.

How do we mitigate deficit spending? I’d like to recommend the following although it would require strong local resolve to accomplish them. They are:

1. Reduce the size of government beginning with the 27-member legislature down to 12 (bicameral to unicameral), including a serious attrition program in the administration. We no longer can bluff money we don’t have in our local coffers.

2. Privatize all sectors of the Commonwealth Utilities Corporation, including the department of public works and other agencies that compete with private business. A bitter pill but a must to allow the private sector to thrive without government as its biggest competitor.

3. Cut the number of fleet of public sector vehicles by 50 percent and give gas allowance to employees who use their vehicles for government-related purposes. This should seriously be considered even for the department of public safety’s vehicular needs.

4. Privatize operations of the Commonwealth Ports Authority, including the Marianas Visitors Authority, to cut cost of operations on money best spent on health and education.

5. Mayors of each municipality ought to be required to produce wealth creation jobs plans to cut the size of their operations within a given period. If these plans pan-out, we’d see more people working for the private sector.

6. Institute a strong and credible civil service system that rewards productive employees, trimming hangers-on who unjustly collect their loot every two weeks. This should discourage daily picnics at taxpaykers expense.

7. Cut out the 3 percent perk given legislators under the retirement program per term. It’s another sure approach to bankrupting the Fund. The everyday is a holiday must go!

8. A policy of salary increases must be earned. This should discourage the cargo cult mentality however gradual.

9. Cut out all overtime pay. If an employee can’t get his or her job done in eight hours time, he or she is the problem not the assigned duties. We should begin conducting government tasks from a business standpoint.

10. If you disagree with these recommendations, please read the first nine suggestions until it becomes second nature. Maybe and just maybe, we can begin instituting lasting policies to learn how to live in both good and bad times.

The NMI is a resource-poor archipelago and we can’t afford wasteful attitudes as though we’re blessed with a huge oil reserve. No sir! Perhaps, too, it is high time that we begin returning to basics.

After all, we were once a very humble and happy people living off the land and sea, content with meaningful livelihood, self-reliant on the fruits of our labor. Think about it! No one else would be here to endure self-inflicted hardship except ourselves. Si Yuus Maase`!

Strictly a personal view. John S. DelRosario Jr. is publisher of Saipan Tribune.