With President Barrack Obama laying out his agenda in the last two years of his second term during his State of the Union Address yesterday in Congress, Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan (Ind-MP) hopes the Republican Party-dominated House of Representatives and Senate would be a willing partner for the President\u2019s ambitious plans.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought the President presented good ideas for legislative action over the next two years, many of which could help us in the Northern Mariana Islands. And I hope that the new Republican leadership in Congress will prove willing to work with the President,\u201d said Sablan in an email to Saipan Tribune.<\/p>\n
In general, the four-term congressman from the CNMI said the President was able to give a very strong speech because the U.S. as a whole is doing well after six years of his leadership.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnemployment is down. Economic growth is up. Graduation rates have improved. The country is less dependent on foreign oil. We have cut our carbon emissions. Of course, there are individuals in our country who are still hurting and areas of our country where more needs to improve. But even in the Northern Marianas our economy is growing. Tourism is up. We are sending more students to college. And we are beginning to see businesses and homeowners shifting away from imported oil to renewable energy sources,\u201d said Sablan.<\/p>\n
But what really caught Sablan\u2019s attention during Obama\u2019s State of the Union Address was his proposal to make the nation\u2019s community colleges essentially free.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn particular I want to see Congress moving forward on the President\u2019s education agenda: helping more students attend and succeed in community colleges, making sure that those students are getting the training they need to fill jobs in the economy, putting more resources into early education. As a member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, I expect to be involved in the debate on those proposals,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Sablan, however, cautioned that such plans won\u2019t happen overnight, adding that he has also made sure that territories like the CNMI would be included in such noble plans.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe challenge always is to make sure that the Northern Mariana Islands, along with the other non-state areas, are not left out or short-changed. The devil is in the details. That is why I reached out to the White House, as soon as the President announced his community college initiative 10 days ago, to get confirmation that he intended it to apply not just to States, but to the Northern Mariana Islands as well. And it does.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also said that much of the Obama\u2019s \u201copportunity\u201d agenda, however, depends on changes in the tax code.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs you know, the Northern Marianas tax system is based on the U.S. tax code. So I have to be very careful before I endorse any specific changes. I have to consult with the governor and with the Northern Marianas Legislature. Because, for instance, new tax credits\u2014such as those the President proposed\u2014could reduce the Commonwealth\u2019s tax revenues and that hurts the Commonwealth government funding of education and health and other high priorities,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
With President Barrack Obama laying out his agenda in the last two years of his…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[37,121,1394,312],"class_list":["post-190003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-education-2","tag-northern-mariana-islands","tag-northern-marianas","tag-obama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190003\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}