Therese Terlaje today announced that Lou Leon Guerrero will deliver her sixth state of the island address at the Guam Congress Building at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, March 5, 2024.
Every year and with every governor, the island government’s chief executive cherry picks issues where they are able to express achievements and victories, and to call upon senators to help them to solve lingering problems.
Here is my speculation about what the governor will talk about and what she’ll leave out of her speech, and my parody summarizing what she’ll say to underscore each of these issues:
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The state of government finances: The government of Guam’s financial position is strong, by all indications in public records. Year-after-year surpluses have been recorded, with those surpluses dedicated to, among other appropriations, $100-a-month discounts on power bills. The government’s cash flow appears to be strong as well, the proof of which is the payment of tax refunds within days or weeks of filing. This cash flow and the excesses of revenue are due to two factors: the 25 percent increase in the business privilege tax that was implemented in 2018 as a temporary funding solution and has yet to be retired; and massive inflows of federal funds during the pandemic. Those federal funds were secured by Guam’s previous delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives, who was the vice chairman of the powerful House Financial Services Committee, which designed many of the pandemic aid packages. Among those federal funds are the now-annual reimbursement to Guam of the cost of paying the federal Earned Income (tax) Credit, which eliminated the decades-old structural imbalance of the General Fund, and the 80 percent increase in federal payments on Medicaid claims.
The governor (parody): We have been the best ever at the financial management. No one helped me. I did this all by myself. Even Mike San Nicolas didn’t do anything.
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The state of the economy: The perennial measure governors use in state of the island addresses for the health of the economy is the unemployment rate. Gubernatorial speechwriters typically choose a fiscal quarter toward the beginning of a governor’s term that shows high unemployment, then compare that against a recent fiscal quarter showing decline in that unemployment. Ms. Leon Guerrero inherited relatively low unemployment and the wealthiest gross domestic product in Guam history from Eddie Calvo. However, unemployment has decreased during her terms in office. Adelup has celebrated this fact. In those celebrations the governor has failed to include one major detail explaining why unemployment is low: Thousands of Guamanians left Guam and thousands of foreign workers entered Guam, shrinking the local private sector workforce by thousands and creating the artificial impression of strong job activity.
The governor: The economy is growing stronger every day with our unemployment at almost nothing
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The state of public education: A governor’s role in the Department of Education has been relegated by the legislature to one of allotment and cash releases. Governors typically use the bully pulpit to marshal resources in support of public education, though they have no control over GDOE’s policies or operations. On a higher policy level, however, governors and legislatures do control the financing and development of new schools. The new superintendent of education has been pivoting GDOE’s resource needs around a major development since the pandemic: there are thousands fewer students in public school classrooms.
The governor: We are proud to announce that the ratio of students to teachers is the lowest it has ever been and that’s because of our care and love for all the kids. It has nothing to do with parents giving up on Guam and taking their kids with them to live in the states because everything is so expensive here.
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The state of Guam Memorial Hospital:
The governor: The legislature sucks
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The state of the delivery of reliable electrical services:
The governor: That’s not me.
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Poverty:
The governor: **crickets**
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Her 2018 promise of universal healthcare:
The governor: **crickets**
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The impossibility of the everyday Guamanian to afford rent or the purchase of a new home:
The governor: **crickets**
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The cost of living:
The governor: **crickets**
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Crime:
The governor: **crickets**
