|
Senators speculate on governor's debt management
While the battle over the budget officially gets underway in a few more weeks, make no mistake: the feud over the government's finances has already started. It was earlier this month Governor Felix Camacho sent a pre-veto message to the member of the Guam Legislature, vowing to turn down anything having to do with an appropriation. "I don't care if it's for the hospital. I don't care if it's for Rev & Tax. There's no money to back that up, they know it," he said.
And saying what he said he was going to do, the island's chief executive vetoed several bills, including those dealing with appropriations to pay the cost of living allowance for Government of Guam retirees, the government's streetlight arrearages, and funding for the Medically Indigent Program and Medicaid, money for manpower and equipment to crank out tax returns and rebates. The governor after vetoing these bills last week said that combined they would have added $36 million to the budget, which already is deficient by more than $40 million.
He also made reference to his Fiscal Recovery and Deficit Elimination Plan, submitted to lawmakers last year. Of that plan Camacho said if it were passed it would have balanced appropriations and revenues this fiscal year and provided the fiscal means to pay down the government's growing half-billion dollar deficit every year until its elimination in 2014. The legislature, however, rejected the plan.
Senator Frank Blas, Jr. (R) agrees the cash is tight, but says the governor's plan is outdated. "With regards to the Deficit Elimination Plan, I for one am willing and continue to be willing to sit with the governor and to discuss the specific details of his plan. I haven't seen one yet for the upcoming fiscal year," the senator told KUAM News.
Senator Ben Pangelinan (D), meanwhile has a different perspective on the government's faltering finances, claiming it's the governor who is actually sending GovGuam into a deeper deficit by using money that is set aside for income tax refunds to pay other obligations. Ht noted, "So you have it every day we grow the deficit because we're not paying tax refunds so the governor is kind of talking out of both sides when he says this, and what he says he's not just going to fund anything he doesn't agree with."
Chairman of the Legislative Committee on Finance & Taxation Senator Eddie Calvo (R) says that the governor is correct when he says that there is no new money for appropriation bills adding that the governor's Deficit Elimination Plan to increase revenues is simply not feasible. "Obviously the governor had presented a deficit elimination plan that calls for an increase in taxation to increase revenues to pay down the deficit," he explained. "Obviously that's not a viable option from the legislature's standpoint."
Despite this Senator Calvo adds that he looks forward to working with the governor to craft a new deficit elimination plan that does not include increasing taxes, and like Calvo, Senator Rory Respicio (D) agrees the governor's deficit elimination plan was not the best way to cut government debt. He told KUAM News, "The governor's vision of a deficit elimination plan had nothing to do with containing the size of the government in trying to shrink it and maximize resources. The governor's idea to eliminate the deficit was simply to raise the Gross Receipts Tax, and all the other taxes and place it on the backs of our people and the business community and we vehemently oppose those kinds of decisions that are especially not done through like the tax review commission or some kind of methodological way to address these things."
In the end there's always an override.
|