Put the brakes on bad drivers

When I walked down to the street to get my mail on a recent afternoon, a green SUV sped so close to the curb that if I'd taken one more step, I would have gotten hit. Since I live on a major road, we usually get quite a handful of speeders, lane crossers and reckless drivers.

Recently, I've been hearing of more and more fatal accidents, not necessarily in my neighborhood, but throughout the island and state, whether of excessive speed, DUI or whatever.

Hawaii needs to make it clear that the people of Hawaii won't tolerate these unacceptable drivers, who are a threat to us and themselves.

There need to be stricter laws against speeding to prevent people from doing it. Whether that means increasing fines or taking even more extreme measures, these drivers need to be stopped.

I just hope these ignoramuses don't put anyone in my family in jeopardy because of their mindless actions.

Nobody is taking responsibility

Our state's financial woes are not the result of osmosis, and yet neither our chief executive officer nor our board of directors accepts responsibility for our current conditions.

We often hear how government should adopt the core practices of private enterprise in order to effectively manage our state's business. If our government adopted the said practices, the buck would stop at the desk of Gov. Linda Lingle and the Legislature, and we, the shareholders, would have fired them all.

Instead, by the actions of the governor and the inaction of the Legislature, it appears that the taxpayers will have to suffer the penalty of delayed tax returns and more taxes and government workers will suffer the penalty of denied pay and benefits while legislators receive a 36 percent raise for part-time attendance; public school children will be denied the hours necessary to receive an education; and the most vulnerable will just be left to suffer.

GET and sales tax not comparable

Sens. Rosalyn Baker and Carol Fukunaga have recently advocated a “;small”; general excise tax increase to fix Hawaii economic ills. They state, “;Hawaii's GET ... is among the lowest in the country.”; That statement shows either an astonishing ignorance or a devious attempt to deceive.

To compare Hawaii's GET with most states' retail sales taxes is nonsense. Most states impose taxes on only retail sales. Hawaii taxes retail sales, wholesale sales, commercial rent, private rent, professional services of almost all types and various other transactions.

Sales from a big wholesaler to a small wholesaler to a retailer and finally to the customer are all taxed under the GET rules. A person who rents a condo and sublets it to someone else generates two taxable events.

Opinions have been expressed that if Hawaii changed to a retail sales tax and wished to generate the same tax revenue, it would have to raise the tax rate to about 12 percent.

The senators' opinion also is that tourists pay more than 30 percent of the tax. A consistent program to stick it to our tourists is idiotic; they may decide to go elsewhere to spend their disposable money.

Barack Obama is not a socialist

Republican stupidity has no limit. I like to think of myself as a socialist. But if President Barack Obama is a socialist, I'm a monkey's uncle, and so are tens of millions of other socialists worldwide.