Dole is pledging to cut taxes, balance the budget, stimulate the economy AND close down the IRS. Yes, siree, that sounds mighty fine.
He was going to pocket my vote - until I remembered a recently released report by the Pop Accountability Group (PAG). For almost two years, this local cadre of nonpartisan volunteers toiled over a long-overdue, thankless deed: It compiled progress accounts of the many promises made by Mayor Jeremy Harris and Gov. Ben Cayetano during their election campaigns.
Then, if that endeavor didn't strike terror into the hearts of politicians, guess what PAG did next? It offered up its free report to the voters of Hawaii via the Star-Bulletin's online edition or by mail.
I don't want to spoil the excitement of perusing your very own copy of this eye-opening document, so here are just a couple of snippets from the governor's portion of the project.
In 1994, Cayetano told a POP '94 citizens panel, "We need to make sure our people can compete. Educational reform is my number one priority."
Governor's statement on results/action taken: No response.
According to The Cayetano Plan, "Small business is the lifeblood of our economy. Government should do all it can to help small business in every possible way rather than hinder it. This means cutting red tape."
Governor's statement on results/action taken: Signed bill . . . to encourage economic development by expanding the Stadium Authority's planning, promotion and marketing activities.
Hmmmm, Ben must have been really, really busy reducing the size of state government and the budgetary shortfall for the past two years. Or maybe he didn't take the PAG people very seriously.
Cayetano met with them in July 1995, but did not submit his responses to the group's questions until March 1996. Some of the answers were scant; in some areas there were no replies at all.
On the other hand, PAG received 63 pages of data from the Mayor's Office addressing each of its questions. Don't even ask me to quote from Harris' portion of the report, because it would fill up this entire newspaper.
Disclaimer: The length, breadth and scope of the mayor's responses, and the correlation to Harris running for re-election this year, is strictly coincidental. (Not.)
PAG's leaders say their goal was to provide "non-judgmental reports that would allow citizens and the media to form their own evaluations of Mayor Harris and Governor Cayetano." And believe me, it will be very easy for voters to come up with judgmental evaluations after plunging into the data.
To access the PAG project via computer and comment on it electronically, go to http://starbulletin.com/specials/pop/index.html. To obtain it or comment via the U.S. mail, write Dolores Foley, University of Hawaii, Public Administration Program, College of Social Sciences, 2550 Campus Road, Crawford 209F, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822, or give her a buzz at 956-2780.
Tell her Bob Dole sent you.