The U.S. Senate is currently reviewing the Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands Equitable Rebuild Act, which, among others, seeks to provide federal funding for Earned Income Tax Credit payouts on both U.S. territories. <\/p>\n
Rep. Angel A. Demapan (R-Saipan), who chairs the Committee on Ways and Means in the CNMI House of Representatives, expressed disappointment Friday that nobody in Washington, D.C. is fighting to ensure that the CNMI is included in this bill that would fully fund the EITC for two other jurisdictions.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe EITC is a federally mandated income supplement for qualified wage earners, especially those with children and is intended for families in need,\u201d said Demapan. \u201cIt\u2019s a real shame to know that there is an active legislation before the U.S. Senate which does not include the CNMI and Guam.\u201d<\/p>\n
The EITC is already available to Americans living in the 50 states and the District of Columbia.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The states are reimbursed by the federal government for EITC payments they make. On the contrary, territories that pay out EITC are not reimbursed. Territories are left to faced such a huge unfunded mandate that states have absolutely nothing to worry about.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As a member of the CNMI 902 team\u00a0in 2016,\u00a0Demapan\u00a0joined Gov.\u00a0Ralph DLG\u00a0Torres in including the issue of the EITC in the 902 consultations as a mechanism to incentivize greater local workforce participation to meet the end of the transition period in 2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are thankful that our recommendations were made part of the final report to Congress.\u00a0Even\u00a0then, we knew that a statutory change in the U.S. Congress is needed in order to provide the CNMI with\u00a0funding to implement the credit,\u201d said Demapan. \u201cIt\u2019s only fair and equitable that this bill before the Senate, introduced by\u00a0Democratic Sen. Bernie Sanders, be amended to include the CNMI and the territories left behind yet again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Demapan\u00a0remains steadfast on his position\u00a0that families in the CNMI deserve to receive EITC payments.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI supported the\u00a0EITC program\u00a0two years ago because I know it\u00a0can lift up many of our working families by providing them with the opportunities to succeed\u00a0in\u00a0our growing economy.\u00a0However, what some are suggesting\u00a0would\u00a0lead to the largest unfunded mandate for our government at a time when\u00a0we have already brought down our government debt by 42.5 percent\u00a0over the last several years, providing more financial security for our children\u2019s future.\u00a0That\u2019s why I cannot understand how our advocates in Washington, D.C. can afford to fall asleep at the wheel when Puerto Rico and\u00a0the U.S.\u00a0Virgin Islands are on the verge of getting full federal support to fund EITC in their jurisdictions, while the\u00a0Marianas is left out once again\u00a0even when the opportunity\u00a0to correct this injustice was available\u00a0in\u00a0Congress. That\u2019s an injustice to working families here in the CNMI,\u201d added Demapan. (PR)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The U.S. Senate is currently reviewing the Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands Equitable Rebuild…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[26,20459,10806,90],"class_list":["post-272147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-cnmi","tag-democratic-sen","tag-eitc","tag-puerto-rico"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272147","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\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272147\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}