Taxpayers financed fight over tax increase
Once upon a time Hawaii's governor appointed an economic task force whose members had high incomes. Unsurprisingly, their tax reform plan lowered taxes on corporations and the rich and passed the burden to those of low and average income and tourists.Public and private funds were spent to "educate" the public to accept the proposal.
When the public turned the plan down, the governor called the people "provincial" and in need of education. The need for education was later echoed by the speaker of the House.
When the Legislature did not pass the proposal, its session was extended. It appeared that the members also needed to be educated.
All the education, also known as propaganda, costs money. So does the extended legislative session. Guess who pays for it all including the government services the wasted money could have brought. That's right, the much-maligned, provincial, uneducated general public.
And that is why, children, Hawaii's most common socio/economic/political observation and comment has come to be: "'As why hard!"
Richard Y. Will
Legislature must cut personal income taxes
Lowering personal income tax rates will help the economy in two ways.First, people will have more hard-earned dollars available for spending, resulting in increased economic activity. That spending will have a multiplying effect throughout the economy, creating new jobs and investment.
Second, the lower tax rates will bring additional jobs to Hawaii, since competitive costs influence where businesses and individuals decide to locate.
Kevin Mulligan
Waikiki's disintegration is destroying the economy
Witness your April 23 business section and we "discover" tourism in Waikiki has been on a loser's roll for the past 11 months. Yet we name the visitor as our main source of income.We know the stressful economic situation in Japan is not helping Hawaii. And maybe it's already too late to woo the mainlander. But what are we doing about it?
Perhaps for much more than a year, the city, state and business community have made little cooperative effort to alter the shame that has fallen upon Waikiki. Why do Waikiki's streets look like Tokyo streets bordered by a few palm trees? And who can get excited about Waikiki when it is checkered by prostitutes and the glare of flashing neon?
The idea of slamming the tourist with more taxes to improve our economy seems downright insane. Can't people, who know tourism is a money machine, do better than that?
Ray Thiele
Kailua
Susan Mollway doesn't oppose drug tests
I am writing to correct statements made by U.S. Senator Sessions (R-Ala.) about Susan Oki Mollway, who has been nominated to fill a vacancy in Hawaii's federal district court ("Senate judiciary finally OKs Mollway as judge," April 30).Sessions is incorrect in attributing to Mollway a blanket opposition to random drug tests in the workplace. She is my partner at the law firm of Cades Schutte Fleming & Wright, and we are both members of our firm's Labor Practice Group, which advises numerous employers on such matters as how to design and implement drug-testing programs that comply with all applicable laws. Thus, Mollway should not be viewed as having a categorical opposition to lawful drug testing in the workplace.
Also incorrect is Sessions' description of her "apparent support" of the elimination of mandatory sentencing for criminals. As Mollway told the Senate Judiciary Committee, she does not object to and is fully prepared to enforce mandatory sentencing laws.
Jeffrey S. Portnoy
Cartoon on Israel distorted reality
Corky's April 24 editorial cartoon depicting an Israeli soldier with Uzi and an unarmed Palestinian civilian was poorly thought out and anti-Semitic propaganda. More horrible is that he chose a time, the day after the Holocaust Memorial Day, to express his insensitivity or ignorance to the fact of indigenous Jewish historical presence in the region.In the cartoon, the Israeli soldier was pointing his Uzi at the civilian Palestinian. While most Palestinians are good, honest, peace-loving, hardworking people, a few of them also carry bombs and kill babies and innocent students on buses with explosive-laden suicide vehicles. Corky didn't allude to that in his imagery.
He should try to be positive, showing how Hawaii's aloha spirit works to bring people of different cultures together and how it could apply to peace in the Middle East.
Barry Markowitz
Laie
(Via the Internet)
Bicycling will become a way of life next century
The bicycle, as a machine, is one of the great inventions of humankind that defies all odds of inertia to allow awkward apes to propel themselves at breakneck speed over the landscape, on no other fuel than what one needs to dance or swim.Considering that the recreational sport of bicycling, and the tourism it supports, has become a giant growth industry, and the fact the Big Island of Hawaii is one of the best places in the world for outdoor touring, you'd think the public plans would include at least a fraction of what is spent on roads for bicycle trails.
Anyone who has ever biked around Willamette Valley in Oregon knows that a bicyclist would love nothing better than having a paved bike trail weaving through parkland, not having to worry about the constant threat of death by a swerving hunk of fiery steel with a screaming maniac at the wheel. Just bikes, strollers, joggers, skaters and lovers walking hand-in-hand.
The best investment in our children's future is a clean, healthy, sutainable one that benefits the body and honors the spirit of invention. Bicycles are the most effective emergency vehicle to have around in a jam.
Please share the road with aloha until our system can adapt.
Bryan "Beez" Evans
Hilo, Hawaii
(Via the Internet)
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