In the recent Pacific Daily News story, “Nearly 800 GovGuam jobs could be impacted in Trump’s proposed 2026 budget,” reporters noted that more than 780 positions within the Government of Guam may be affected by proposed federal spending cuts. The agencies most likely to be impacted include the Department of Public Health and Social Services, the Guam Behavioral Health and Wellness Center, the Guam Department of Labor, and the Guam Environmental Protection Agency.
Every job cut is a tragedy for a working family, so it is important to understand the scale of the tragedy unfolding. Working people deserve an honest accounting of how many jobs stand to be lost in the face of federal cuts. The number is likely far fewer than the headline figure, but these are real jobs and real lives, not just headlines. Federal cuts have affected and will continue to affect GovGuam’s budget. Without active intervention, they will translate into more lost jobs and reduced services. For every two GovGuam jobs lost, we can expect one private sector job to follow.
These cuts will affect more than those who lose their jobs. The affected agencies support health care access, behavioral health, workforce development, and environmental stewardship. These services matter to those who use them directly, and to others who see the value they create or preserve. With careful analysis, we can quantify these services’ public value—not only in dollars, but in improved health outcomes, reduced inequality, and a stronger community. We should begin evaluating exactly what is at risk—both in terms of employment and in the deeper social goods these positions sustain. That assessment can help us prioritize which services are most vital.
I sense an air of resignation among leaders. Cuts like these do not touch the wealthy few, but the laboring and struggling many. If you look at the proposed cuts, they largely come from eliminating jobs and cutting social services. It is easy to be resigned to inaction when one doesn’t have skin in the game. Few of our leaders will see their jobs on the chopping block—or face the loss of public assistance, health care, transportation, or help in finding or holding down a job. But hundreds in our community will.
Guam is not a poor community. It is a developed economy on the threshold of Asia. We have resources to ensure services are preserved—or even strengthened. Our tax rates are low; our fees are outdated; and we have the authority under the Organic Act to establish new sources of revenue if necessary. As a community, we can pay for what we value, and we should be willing to do so. Safeguarding vital jobs and services for our people, we must determine how to pay for them. I know there is a structure of power in our society and economy. But ultimately, power rests with the people—and it should serve the people.
“This aimless drift is dangerous,” Governor Ricardo J. Bordallo warned in 1975. “We must make the process of future-building a conscious and rational act on our part. To do otherwise is to court disaster, not only for ourselves but also for our children.” I am tempted to take this quote at face value, but the drift is not aimless. There is an aim and it serves the structure of power.
I urge the people of Guam to ask themselves what they value. Do they believe their relatives, their friends, their fellow Guamanians, should have economic security, health care, transportation, and a leg up when they are struggling? Will they stand with them? Or will they ask how many pieces of silver they can get for selling them out?
GuamMinimumWage.org 