Your vote, your ballot: A policy checklist for the 2026 Election

By Samuel S. Kim

Part 1 of a four-part series on the 2026 Guam elections.

 

Every election season brings the same familiar promises: higher wages, more jobs, better roads. In 2026, candidates for governor, senator and congressional delegate will all make versions of that speech. Many will mean it sincerely.

But Guam does not have a sincerity problem. It has a structural one.

Between 2010 and 2020, Guam lost 5,522 residents—a 3.5 percent decline, while most American communities were growing. School enrollment dropped 15 percent at the elementary level and 16 percent at middle schools. These are real families who weighed the cost of staying and chose to leave.

What is needed are specific, verifiable commitments—and an electorate that knows which candidate is responsible for which result.

The 2026 ballot includes three levels of government, each with different powers. Understanding the difference is the first step toward genuine accountability.

The governor leads Guam’s executive agencies and can act without waiting— redirecting GEDA, streamlining permits, leading trade missions. But a governor cannot change tax law or spend money without the legislature’s approval.

The 15-member Guam legislature writes the laws and controls the budget. The business privilege tax rate is a legislative decision. Childcare subsidies require legislative funding. Manufacturing incentive zones need a bill to become real. All 15 seats are on the 2026 ballot. Voters who focus only on the governor’s race are watching half the game.

Guam’s congressional delegate is the island’s only voice in Washington, which controls more of Guam’s future than most realize. The 30 percent federal tax on income remitted to foreign investors, a rate the 50 states avoid through tax treaties but Guam cannot change without Congress, is a federal matter. The Jones Act, which raises the cost of nearly everything shipped to the island, is a federal matter.⁴ An effective delegate can unlock resources no governor or senator can reach alone.

The governor is the engine. The legislature controls the fuel. The delegate negotiates at the refinery.

The checklist

1. Close the wage gap: Workers on Guam earned an average of $21.39 per hour in May 2024, compared to the national average of $32.66—a 35 percent gap— while paying island prices for everything. The federal government acknowledges this openly: it provides an 11.88 percent cost-of-living allowance for its own employees here. For a nurse or engineer comparing a Guam offer to a mainland one, the math rarely favors staying.

A promise sounds like: “We will create higher-paying jobs.”

An action plan looks like: a wage benchmark study published within the first year; a phased salary schedule for critical fields like healthcare and education; and an annual public report tracking how many skilled workers left and where they went.

Ask every candidate: Which specific roles will see salary adjustments and by when?

2. Bring 55,000 people back into the workforce: Guam’s unemployment rate of 3.4 percent in September 2024 sounds healthy. It is not the full picture. In that same period, 55,620 working-age adults were completely outside the labor force — not unemployed, but not working or looking. The participation rate was 54.8 percent, recovering to 57.4 percent by June 2025.

Many face real barriers: no affordable childcare, no reliable transportation, no clear path back in. That untapped workforce is also untapped tax revenue Guam desperately needs.

A promise sounds like: “We will expand workforce programs and support working families.”

An action plan looks like: a funded childcare subsidy with published enrollment numbers; a public transit pilot on at least two major residential routes; and a defined target — 62 percent labor force participation by year four — against which the administration can be measured.

Ask every candidate: Where exactly does the childcare money come from, and when does it start?

3. Reform the business privilege tax—honestly. The BPT is charged on gross revenue, not profit. Businesses pay it whether or not they made money. In 2018, the rate rose from 4 percent to 5 percent. In August 2025, the legislature narrowly rolled it back to 4 percent by a vote of 8 to 7—a rollback projected to cost the government $40 million per year.

That trade-off deserves honest public discussion, not slogans. And while the BPT debate dominates headlines, the permitting process—requiring clearances from up to eight separate agencies—quietly costs new businesses thousands of dollars before a single customer walks in. A government task force called it “arduous” in 2019.

A promise sounds like: “We will support small businesses and make Guam more competitive.”

An action plan looks like: an independent study modeling the real revenue impact of different BPT rates; a tiered structure distinguishing small local businesses from large off-island contractors; and a permitting reform timeline with measurable benchmarks.

Ask every candidate: Have you read the $40 million revenue analysis? What is your plan to replace that funding?

4. Stop taxing the grocery cart. There is a tax that no one explicitly voted to put on your food—and most residents do not realize they are paying it.

Guam’s BPT applies to every retail transaction, including basic, unprepared food at the grocery store. Merchants pay the tax on gross receipts and pass the cost to consumers through higher prices. A family buying rice, eggs, chicken, and bread—items that sit at the foundation of daily survival—is paying a government tax on those purchases, embedded invisibly in every price tag.

This is not the universal norm. Massachusetts exempts unprepared food from its sales tax, drawing a clear line between home groceries and restaurant meals. The same state exempts clothing priced below $175 per item—basic clothing should not be subject to tax for families already stretched thin.

But Guam is not Massachusetts, and any exemption must account honestly for the revenue it forgoes. When a family earns 35 percent less than the U.S. national average, layering a privilege tax on baby formula and bread is a policy choice—and one the legislature can change.

A promise sounds like: “We will help families with the cost of living.”

An action plan looks like: a BPT exemption for unprepared food sold at retail, a companion exemption for essential clothing below a defined threshold, and a fully modeled revenue offset so the burden is not shifted elsewhere.

Ask every legislative candidate: Do you support a BPT exemption for unprepared groceries and basic clothing? If so, how do you propose to offset the revenue impact?

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5. Fix Infrastructure—visibly and measurably. No investor will commit capital to a location where power outages require businesses to budget for generators and water quality advisories are routine. No workforce program works when workers cannot reliably get to work. Infrastructure is not a quality-of-life issue separate from economic development; it is the foundation on which everything rests.

A promise sounds like: “We will improve our roads, water and power.”

An action plan looks like: a published infrastructure assessment within the first six months, with a prioritized repair schedule the public can track; a capital improvement plan for the Guam Waterworks Authority with measurable milestones; a Guam Power Authority reliability roadmap with published benchmarks;¹⁶ and active pursuit of federal infrastructure grants — the congressional delegate’s domain, not the governor’s.

Ask every candidate: What is the single most critical infrastructure failure on this island, and what is your plan for it?

6. Govern with transparency: Every item on this checklist has been discussed before. What has been missing is follow-through that the public can actually see and verify.

A promise sounds like: “Our administration will be transparent and accountable.”

An action plan looks like: an annual economic report that tracks wages, labor force participation, business formation, and population in plain language— separate from the State of the Island address; and a public commitments dashboard that shows what was promised and what was delivered.

Ask every candidate — at every level: Will you publish an accountability dashboard in year one?

In 2026, Guam voters will choose a governor, 15 senators, and a congressional delegate. Each holds a different piece of the solution. Electing the right governor while ignoring the legislature is like hiring a skilled architect and refusing to fund construction. Sending a weak delegate to Washington leaves real resources on the table.

The problems are not mysterious. The data is not in dispute. What Guam needs from 2026 is not another vision statement — it is an entire class of elected officials, at every level, prepared to be held to specific, measurable commitments.

To every voter: demand answers, not speeches. To every candidate: Guam is watching — and in 2026, counting.

 Samuel S. Kim is a tech executive and engineering leader with more than 20 years of experience. He founded and scaled a 60-person R&D division in Seoul and holds a degree in Economics from UCLA. He writes as a concerned resident and registered voter of Guam. He can be contacted at sk102.co.

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