A new political action committee has been launched to endorse candidates who support issues important to the private sector. In a virtual news conference today, representatives of the Action PAC outlined what they’re looking for in political leaders.

The group said

it’s not affiliated with any specific political party and its membership includes every major business organization, from the Guam Chamber, the Women’s Chamber, the Chinese and Korean Chambers, a cross-section of the community itself. Former banker Laura Dacanay is the executive director of Action PAC.

"Our group is gonna be vetting through the candidates," she said. "We’ll be polling them and finding out how they feel about different initiatives."

And they will only be endorsing those who support those initiatives, specifically: reducing the size of government, increasing transparency, supporting the military buildup, supporting a part-time legislature, and rolling back the business privilege tax from 5 percent to 4. Christine Baleto is the group’s chairperson.

"We have a lot of ideas on how we can streamline the government and transparency we want to be able to have open dialogue with the candidates, hopefully with the elected senators to effectuate that change," she said.

The most immediate help the group is seeking is a rollback of the BPT. Baleto said the government was able to pay down the deficit which means it has extra money beyond its operational needs.

"At 5 percent the more businesses that close down the less revenue there’s gonna be for the government so, we’re requesting for a shift in focus to allow our business community to recover from this economic crisis and allow them to bring back their employees," she said. "As a business owner, we’re not the bad guys. We’ve taken care of our employees the best that we could. We had employees who were homeless, and we housed them for the two months of the last lockdown. OK, but we don't brag about these things. But these are the things that the business community needs to do to bring the island together, and we need the government to help us survive. That’s what we’re talking about."