Mayor Harris was right
to exercise utmost cautionThe issue: Leaders at all levels
are struggling to cope with a
frightened new world.Shakespeare tells us: "The better part of valor is discretion." In the last couple of days, President Bush and Mayor Harris seem to have wisely taken that adage to heart while Governor Cayetano and the director of the Department of Health, Bruce Anderson, have not.
President Bush was to have addressed a Republican fund-raising dinner in Washington tonight but has decided not to. His political advisers wanted him to keep the date but Vice President Cheney, who will go in the president's place, said it would be inappropriate while the campaign against terror is under way. Good call.
Here at home, Mayor Harris reacted with alacrity to suspicions that anthrax had gotten into the mail of an architectural firm downtown. His Honor rocketed an e-mail throughout the city government telling people to stop opening mail. It turned out that anthrax testers had not worked properly, perhaps because operators were new to the task. The mayor may have been a bit red-faced because he had assured people only a few days ago that the new equipment was just the thing for a quick reading of an anthrax threat. Even so, he made the right call.
Governor Cayetano and Health Director Anderson, however, criticized the mayor for jumping the gun. Cayetano contended that the testing machines were not reliable and Anderson told the press: "I think that's overreacting to this issue." Easy calls in hindsight from two officials who would not have been responsible had sickness or death materialized from anthrax. They should have gotten behind the mayor for making a gutsy call.
Since September 11, these have been perilous times for everyone living in America. We have been struck by surprise in a manner no one could have imagined and then struck again with an insidious toxin from sources that still have not been identified. We know not when or where or whence the next strike will come.
In this murky tunnel, our elected and appointed leaders are feeling their way along and are bound to make mistakes. So long as they are mistakes of the head and not of the heart, and err on the side of prudence, they are due the allegiance of the followers.
To keep that allegiance, the leaders need to play straight with the voters and taxpayers, to address the issues head-on and with as much hard fact as they can muster, and to address the public with candor and consistency.
Consumer spending
is vital to recoveryThe issue: Lawmakers are looking for
ways to stimulate the state's economy.Consumer spending, which accounts for two-thirds of the nation's gross domestic product, has kept the economy in gear during the past decade. It is only logical that plans to stimulate the economy include ways to prod consumer spending. As lawmakers at the state Capitol and in Congress struggle with economic recovery, their objective should be to put money in the hands of consumers with personal tax cuts or credits.
In Hawaii, this may be easier said than done. The thin masks of political unity donned by state lawmakers and Governor Cayetano after the September 11 attacks have already been ripped away.
After Cayetano opposed an increase in tax credit for hotel construction to 6 percent, legislative leaders, in a fit of petulant politics, upped the credit to 10 percent and challenged the governor to veto. With Cayetano saying he'll do just that and lawmakers unsure if they have the votes to override, the bill may end up as a victim of political battles.
The prevailing argument for most bills in the Legislature's emergency session is that tax credits will encourage investment and money injected into construction will trickle down through employment. These are gambles. There are no guarantees that the credits will prompt new development. Legislators are rolling the dice with $20 million in estimated lost revenues and even if the credits encourage building, spreading the wealth will take time.
In Washington, the U.S. House is making similar bets. The Republican measure would provide $112 billion in corporate tax breaks, which includes larger write-offs for new investment. With industrial production at its lowest in 20 years, it is unlikely most companies will invest until demand increases and demand -- consumer spending -- won't come until people have money to buy.
Another provision is a $25 billion refund of the alternative minimum corporate income tax. About a fifth of these rebates would go to just a dozen companies -- an estimated $1.4 billion to IBM, $833 million to General Motors, $671 million to General Electric and $608 million to Texas Utilities. How these companies would be able to spend these refunds quickly is unimaginable.
Economic stimulus is needed now and the most expedient method would be to focus benefits on consumers. If they spend, they stimulate.
Published by Oahu Publications Inc., a subsidiary of Black Press.Don Kendall, President
John Flanagan, publisher and editor in chief 529-4748; jflanagan@starbulletin.com
Frank Bridgewater, managing editor 529-4791; fbridgewater@starbulletin.com
Michael Rovner, assistant managing editor 529-4768; mrovner@starbulletin.com
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