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<\/p>\nHouse of Representatives floor leader Rep. Edwin K. Propst (D-Saipan) said on Friday that it doesn\u2019t matter if the government has a $250-million or $100-million annual budget, it always overspends.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd even the greatest year on the economy that we\u2019ve ever seen. We see what? Deficit spending. It\u2019s ridiculous,\u201d said Propst during the miscellaneous portion of the House session.<\/p>\n
He said it\u2019s the problem (overspending) that the CNMI has always faced and that something that he will be putting out next week about how the annual budget is gone up and down.<\/p>\n
Propst said it\u2019s also ridiculous to talk about that the Legislature needs to find revenue-generating bills and when they come up with ideas, they\u2019re told that they are idiots that they shouldn\u2019t be doing this.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat is the alternative? If you\u2019re talking about more cuts, we\u2019ve already done cuts,\u201d he pointed out.<\/p>\n
Propst said one of the first things that the Palacios-Apatang administration did was cutting the over 500 American Rescue Plan Act-funded employees.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow we didn\u2019t want to say that we wanted to cut them but there was no choice because there was no more ARPA money,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The floor leader said now there\u2019s now talk about bringing back those 500 employees.<\/p>\n
He said the government has no money for those 500 employees.<\/p>\n
Propst said the sad thing is something that\u2019s going to come soon is when the government is going to run out of money where it won\u2019t be able to pay the 25% pension benefits for retirees.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd when that day comes, what\u2019s going to be said? I can say without a doubt that my colleagues have done their best to try to find revenue-generating bills. And I support them as much as I hate to raise any taxes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Propst said the alternative was to raise the business gross revenue taxes which every business was opposed to.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, what is the alternative besides begging Uncle Sam for more money? That\u2019s my frustration,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Propst asked House members that they have to be united on these generating-revenue bills.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve asked you this because what is the choice? We\u2019re going to go out there and tell the public that we don\u2019t have any revenue-generating bills? We do. We\u2019ve done our best,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Propst asked the public to help them by giving ideas instead of criticism.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m open to it. My office is open. Everybody here, your office is open,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Propst said they have to do something because to do nothing is an injustice to this Commonwealth.<\/p>\n
He said he is deeply concerned for the retirees.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf some of them that don\u2019t get that 25%, they are already barely surviving. It is critical that we continue that service,\u201d Propst said.<\/p>\n
He said if the Legislature does not have any revenue- generating bills passed and none signed into law, then what more can they do?<\/p>\n
\u201cCut more hours or cut more employees? Those are the alternatives. What do you want to do?\u201d Propst said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Edwin K. Propst<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
House of Representatives floor leader Rep. Edwin K. Propst (D-Saipan) said on Friday that it…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-404312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404312","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404312\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}