Look, boys and girls, it's a Brian Kanno doll!
Parents of young children, your worries are over. Forget about those scarce "Tickle Me Elmos." This political season, there's a popular new doll called the Brian Kanno.Well, actually, it's not a doll. It's a puppet. And it's not for sale unless you are a labor or trade union.
Just think of the valuable lessons your kids can learn from having their very own Brian Kanno. Your keiki can learn to draft and endorse slanted discriminatory pro-union legislation such as that found in SB 2496.
When face-to-face in a hearing room full of opponents, many of whom came from the neighbor islands to testify, your children will gain hands-on experience on how to squirm, evade and defer voting on a bill.
Buy your Brian Kanno now and, for a few more dollars, you can acquire the entire action set featuring the ever-popular Calvin Kawamoto and Marshall Ige puppets.
Hurry, this is a limited-time offer. Who knows, perhaps the Brian Kanno, Cal Kawamoto and Marshall Ige will soon fall out of fad. They may end up on the bottom of your children's toy chests (next to the "Power Rangers" and "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles") come election time.
Keoki Van Orden
Time for public employees to give back to taxpayers
Over the last few years, bureaucrats knuckled under to pressure and threats from public employee unions. These unions pushed for and got pay increases and benefits far above what the economy could support.Now, as Hawaii's economy skids ever closer to the brink, public employee furloughs or layoffs loom on the horizon. I recommend a rollback as a simple means of redressing past bureaucratic largess.
Let's say that public employee pay is rolled back an average $1 per hour, based on a sliding scale. Assuming a 40-hour week times 52 weeks per year times 45,000 state employees, we achieve an annual savings in excess of $93 million.
Next, eliminate overtime in all but the most crucial circumstances. Finally, eliminate two or three holidays in favor of productive work days. Total annual savings should easily surpass $120 million, if not more.
Such actions should also avoid immediate furloughs or layoffs, and allow a more ordered personnel reduction through attrition and retirement.
Public employee unions were more than willing to take while the getting was good. Are they now willing to give back, not only to save jobs but to save Hawaii's economy?
Kerry A. Krenzke
Small public schools are really cost efficient
In response to your Jan. 23 editorial on school closings, it is truly encouraging that increasing numbers of people are finally heeding the sound arguments for providing small school environments for elementary students.Thank you for restating the fact that closing a small school saves little money. People don't realize that small schools are actually cost efficient.
At Wailupe Valley School, for example, we require no vice principal, security staff, cafeteria staff or auditorium. Parents serve as tutors and actively provide assistance in the classroom.
As for the "aging neighborhood" factor, neighborhood growth patterns are cyclical. What is overlooked is that, as elderly homeowners pass on, new young families or extended family members with children move in and the cycle begins anew.
Daralynn S. Higgins
Build prison on Oahu, not on neighbor island
Present prison conditions have motivated the state to fast-track the building of a new prison in Kau. The American Civil Liberties Union stated that living conditions were better in the zoo than in Hawaii prisons.We are already warehousing prisoners inhumanely. How humane it is to send prisoners to the mainland, where they cannot be visited by their children and families?
Isn't it more humane, not to mention more cost effective, to keep prisoners in their home districts?
Since 80 percent of Hawaii's inmates are from Oahu, they should be kept on that island.
Ruth Marie Bass
Naalehu, Hawaii
Overpopulation is problem of immense proportions
I found Thomas Sowell's Feb. 16 column, "Exposing fallacies of overpopulation," to be a pertinent lesson on the nature of modern hypocrisy. Sowell, in lashing out at the overpopulation thesis, claims it is without basis in fact.He repeats this assertion six or seven times, citing no facts himself until the end of the article -- where he points out that 10 unnamed natural resources are cheaper today than they were 10 years ago.
What a load of rubbish! The relationship between overpopulation and the price of 10 commodities is virtually nonexistent. Certainly, in the last 10 years, advances in modern technology have made the acquisition of natural resources cheaper, easier and more reliable. Mining for gold and silver on the ocean floor, for example, was unheard of five years ago.
None of this has any bearing on the main clause of the overpopulation thesis: Population increases geometrically, while food production increases incrementally and fresh water remains available at an absolute level.
Bret Heilig
Kailua
Income taxes should be cut across the board
There has been some discussion regarding raising the general excise tax from 4 percent to 4.75 percent, and decreasing the state income tax by 30 percent for the first two years and by 40 percent in the third year.It's safe to assume that landlords will pass this increased cost onto their tenants. Rents are usually based on some multiple of $5 or $10; thus the GET will increase by an amount of nearly $5 on a rent of $830 per month.
Therefore, it seems reasonable to assume that most rents less than this will also increase by $5 a month. This results in a rent increase of $60 a year.
Sixty dollars is 30 percent of $200, so low-income people who pay less than $200 in state income tax (with an adjusted income of $4,450 or less) will find their income tax savings likely to be less than their increase in rent under this plan for the first two years.
Low-income people who pay less than $150 in state income tax (with an adjusted gross income of $3,800 or less) per year will likely find their rent increase greater than their state income tax savings from the third year on.
Perhaps the fairer way of decreasing income tax would be to give everyone an across the board reduction of, say $100, rather than doing it by rates.
Randolph Hack
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