Higher tobacco tax would increase crime

The Star-Bulletin editorial "Paying more may prod smokers to quit" (Feb. 24) was based on flawed, short-term, surface considerations. While admitting that Hawaii has an image as a tax hell, it was claimed that the cigarette tax increase might just lead to smokers quitting, or at least cutting down.

If that happened, where would the essential (by now) tax revenues come from? How about higher taxes on newsprint? Or perhaps the same tooth fairy that caused so many smokers to quit will feed the government.

The main problem is the complete omission of at least two guaranteed, long-term results of a higher cigarette tax: enhancement of the individual financial attractiveness of selling black market cigarettes and the resulting exponential government growth in law enforcement personnel and their intrusion into private affairs.

On average, smokers populate the lower income stratus. Thus, the tax hurts those most vulnerable and pushes some of the more enterprising toward a life of newly created crime. That tends to crowd our prisons.

Bad law forces out good behavior. You are advocating bad law and the inevitable disreputable behavior that follows.

Let us focus on preventing crime rather than creating it.

Richard O. Rowland
President
Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, Inc.

State can't oversee part of health industry

Of course Larry Geller (Letters, Feb. 10) wants "sunshine" for HMSA. His group, Hawaii Coalition for Health, promotes the interests of physicians. Health insurers act merely as middlemen between the citizens of Hawaii who pay the premiums and the doctors like Geller's constituency who provide services. More than 90 cents on every dollar collected by HMSA goes straight to health care, a figure well above those of mainland insurers.

You cannot regulate one side of this equation (premiums) without regulating the other (drugs and doctors).

Voters should ask if they want half-hearted government regulation of their health. People should remember the last time a state government mistakenly intervened in industry: California with its energy crisis, where the state set the price charged to the consumer without regulating the wholesale cost of the electricity. The result was disastrous for Californians. This is the solution proposed for Hawaii health care.

Health insurance costs are rising due to the effects of escalating drug and physician charges. If the state is to regulate the health-care industry, let it regulate all of it. Otherwise the inevitable failure of the insurance companies due to rising drug and medical charges will have severe consequences to Hawaii's health.

Michelle Ferguson

[Quotables] "I think work ought to be the core of welfare reform." President George W. Bush On his proposal to increase the work requirements for welfare recipients as part of his reform plan. Under current law, at least 50 percent of welfare families are required to participate in work and other activities aimed at self-sufficiency. Bush would increase that number to 70 percent by 2007. -- "We had more weights under one gym than anyone in the world, but that doesn't pay my rent." Shane Morioka Owner of World Gym Honolulu, on his decision to close the facility. The 11,000-square-foot gym had about 700 members, but had room for 3,000. Morioka said the low number of members made it difficult for him to pay the rent on the space. He opened the gym in June 1999 and geared it toward serious weightlifters.

Hurricane retrofit plan would be unfair

There are bills in the Legislature to create a hurricane retrofit grant program from moneys in the Hurricane Relief Fund. Retrofits are a good idea. The problem is the way this is being done.

The grant program is to be open to all residential property owners. This is unfair because it gives money from the hurricane fund to people who didn't pay into it. Should the government be using funds taken for hurricane insurance and grant it for another purpose?

The grant program is to be on a first-come, first-served basis. What happens when it runs out of money and people who paid into the hurricane fund are denied access? Suppose people who paid into the fund are pushed out of the program by people who never contributed to it, but who applied first? Neither result is fair. The results become even worse if the people who are denied access to the program have already spent their own money on the retrofit, which can happen because the grants are to be awarded after the retrofits have been completed.

Finally, because the grant program requires people to pay half the cost of the retrofit, it unfairly favors those who can afford it.

Maxine Shea

Lawyers' good deeds go unnoticed

Rob Perez' report "When Lawyers Go Bad" (Star-Bulletin, Feb. 10-12) is perhaps well-meaning, but is ultimately misleading.

On the one hand, the report fulfills a valuable purpose: It informs Hawaii's citizens that on those unlikely occasions when their attorneys disservice them, they have a forum in which to vindicate their rights. On the other hand, the report unduly fuels distrust of an entire profession by focusing upon the "bad apples."

Even as the report mentions that "the vast majority of Hawaii lawyers will go their entire careers without drawing any disciplinary complaints," it leaves the reader fearing that he or she may be the next victim of an attorney who will take their case, steal their money and flee the country.

In fact, Hawaii's lawyers do make positive contributions to the community. They do this by servicing their clients effectively, conscientiously and without fanfare. They also volunteer their assistance to those members of the community who could not otherwise afford legal services.

For instance, since 1981, Volunteer Legal Services Hawai'i (formerly known as Hawaii Lawyers Care) has been a private, nonprofit organization facilitating low- or no-cost legal assistance to low-income residents, including the homeless. VLSH has been blessed with the support of a large volunteer army, including more than 600 lawyers, plus law students and legal assistants, who accept cases, staff phone lines and participate in neighborhood clinics throughout the state, all at no financial benefit to themselves.

Unlike attorney misconduct, attorney altruism is not lurid or sensational, but it is a far more distinguishing and pervasive feature of Hawaii's legal community. Hopefully, in the future, it will be a more newsworthy one as well.

Judy Sobin
Executive director
Volunteer Legal Services Hawai'i

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