COMMITTEEUPDATE
Military, Government and Labor Relations Committee Update – November ‘12
By John M. Robertson Local Election Results Unofficial election results are in and we can claim a partial victory for the business community. The Fab 5 scored 9th, 10th, 12th, and 15th positions in the new Legislature and may not be placed in leadership roles. The one in 19th place will of course not be in the 2013-2014 Legislative body. The eight top scoring candidates: 1. Dennis Rodriguez Jr, D; 2. Frank Blas Aguon Jr, D; 3. Tom Ada, D; 4. Thomas A. Morrison, R; 5. Michael F.Q. San Nicholas, D; 6. Anthony Ada, R; 7. Michael Limtiaco, R; and, 8. Christopher M. Duenas, R, are individuals the business community and all citizens can work with. Four are Democrat and four are Republican. The Democratic Party will of course select those to serve in leadership positions and we can trust that they will do the right thing for all the people of Guam. The Fab 5 Senators are believed to have contributed to halting the military buildup by delaying approval of the Programmatic Agreement and making unreasonable demands on a Senatorial delegation, thus damaging contractors and most local businesses. Another item high on the New Year’s wish list is to see greater mutual respect and cooperation between members of the Administration and the Legislature and especially in fiscal matters. There are challenges to be dealt with and also great opportunities ahead to boost the local economy if dealt with correctly. The greatest opportunities are still related to the Realignment of Military Forces in the western Pacific and we hope that the 32nd Legislature will do more than the last Legislature in seizing every opportunity that will lead toward long term prosperity for all island residents.
National Election Results:
10 | NOVEMBER2012
For Republicans here in Guam and across the nation, the national election outcome was a disaster. President Obama won the Electoral College numbers by a landslide and will be in office for another four years. The popular vote count is not yet final but preliminary results indicate a slimmer margin of victory for Mr Obama. The main issue during election campaigning was restoring the economy to good health which would lead to more jobs and especially sustainable good paying jobs.
care law. At the same time, the spending cuts agreed upon as part of the debt ceiling deal of 2011 will begin to go into effect. According to Barron's, over 1,000 government programs - including the defense budget and Medicare are in line for "deep, automatic cuts."
According to the U.S. NATIONAL DEBT CLOCK, the Outstanding Public Debt as of 11 Nov 2012 at 04:54:18 AM GMT was $16,254,182,668,299.52. More simply stated, that is $16.25 trillion U.S. dollars. The estimated population of the United States is 313,849,174 so each citizen's share of this debt is $51,789.79. The National Debt has continued to increase an average of $3.88 billion per day since September 28, 2007! Concerned? Then tell Congress and the White House!
• They can let the current policy scheduled for the beginning of 2013 – which features a number of tax increases and spending cuts that are expected to weigh heavily on growth and possibly drive the economy back into a recession – go into effect. The plus side: the deficit, as a percentage of GDP, would be cut in half. • They can cancel some or all of the scheduled tax increases and spending cuts, which would add to the deficit and increase the odds that the United States could face a crisis similar to that which is occurring in Europe. The flip side of this, of course, is that the United States' debt will continue to grow. • They could take a middle course, opting for an approach that would address the budget issues to a limited extent, but that would have a more modest impact on growth.
The public debt crisis began under the Republican presidency of George W. Bush but accelerated under President Obama and there is serious concern that he will be able, under his policies, to arrest or reverse the rate of growth in the deficit. President Obama was reelected largely on the basis of his promises to support expensive programs such as so-called “entitlements”, “ObamaCare” and other public assistance activities. This is on top of trending toward even larger government bureaucracy. These policies are leading America on an economic path toward what is now being witnessed in the European countries of Ireland, Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal. The only way out of the economic quagmire we face is through fundamental economic reform. Can President Obama make such drastic change in his approach to the presidency? We can only wait and see. Meanwhile, two dominant buzz words have emerged in the nation’s capital: “Fiscal Cliff” and “Sequestration”. “Fiscal cliff” is the popular shorthand term used to describe the conundrum that the U.S. government will face at the end of 2012, when the terms of the Budget Control Act of 2011 are scheduled to go into effect. Among the laws set to change at midnight on December 31, 2012, are the end of last year’s temporary payroll tax cuts (resulting in a 2% tax increase for workers), the end of certain tax breaks for businesses, shifts in the alternative minimum tax that would take a larger bite, the end of the tax cuts from 2001-2003, and the beginning of taxes related to President Obama’s health
CONSTRUCTION NEWS BULLETIN
In dealing with the fiscal cliff, U.S. lawmakers and the president have a choice among three options, none of which are particularly attractive:
“Sequestration” is a fiscal policy procedure adopted by Congress to deal with the federal budget deficit. It first appeared in the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Deficit Reduction Act of 1985. Simply put, sequestration is the cancellation of budgetary resources -- an "automatic" form of spending cutback. The Budget Control Act of 2011 (BCA) established a 12 member Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction (or “super committee”) charged with reducing the deficit by an additional $1.2 - $1.5 trillion over ten years. The BCA also included a sequestration hammer should the super committee fail, a provision intended to “force” the super committee to act. Despite the threat of sequestration, the super committee failed. Announcing its inability to reach an agreement on November 21, 2011, the members of the bipartisan committee stated that "after months of hard work and intense deliberations, we have come to the conclusion today that it will not be possible to make any bipartisan agreement available to the public before the committee's deadline." So, as established in the BCA, sequestration was triggered when the super committee
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