Estate tax should still apply to super-rich

As the owner of a small business, I think it's so unfair that some members of Congress want to give multi-millionaires a costly new tax break by permanently repealing the federal estate tax and leaving the rest of us with the short end of the stick.

Our nation is currently struggling to provide quality education and health care, protect Social Security and Medicare, and bolster homeland security for all. Can we really afford to give the wealthiest 2 percent of estate holders an extra $850 billion over 20 years?

Instead of helping the super-rich get richer through complete repeal, we should permanently reform the estate tax to ensure that small-business owners like myself, family farmers and the vast majority of Americans never have to pay it.

Jay K. Evans

Quit blaming Clinton for failures of others

In a June 6 column, Balint Vazsonyi asks why there have been no resignations from the Bush administration in light of its intelligence failures and foul-ups leading up to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. He then comes to the easy conclusion that it's President Clinton's fault!

If Vazsonyi is trying to pretend that President Clinton got away with anything, give us a break. The all-time champion for "getting away with it" was Ronald Reagan, who had 125 members of his administration under investigation, indicted or forced to resign.

Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush got away with Iran-Contra because people just didn't have the stomach for another scandal of Watergate proportions. Bush said that he was "out of the loop" as vice president. That was very hard to believe.

President Clinton is a saint compared to some of his recent Republican predecessors and the current crop.

Nancy Bey Little

Help end world hunger by eating less meat

Worldwide, 60 million people -- 150,000 each day -- die of hunger, even though more than enough food is produced to feed everyone. Inefficient land use and inequitable distribution of food resources is to blame.

In order to end hunger, world leaders must make different political and economic choices, and individual consumers will have to make choices, too.

We often feel helpless when we think about world hunger, but there is one thing that each of us can do: reduce or eliminate meat consumption in order to make more food available for the rest of the world. A 10 percent drop in U.S. meat consumption would make 12 million tons of grain available -- enough to feed the 60 million people who are starving to death each year.

The World Resources Institute predicts that by 2025 at least 3.5 billion people will experience water shortages. Animal agriculture uses more water than all other human uses combined and is the No. 1 cause of water pollution.

At the World Food Summit, which starts tomorrow in Rome, political leaders must support the needs of the people and the planet above the desire of corporate agribusiness for more and more profit.

Hunger in the midst of plenty is an obscenity. The majority of people who die due to hunger or malnutrition are children under the age 5. We must all take responsibility for this problem. By eliminating animal-derived foods from our diet, and choosing plant-based foods instead, we can feed the world while preserving the planet.

Laurelee Blanchard
Haiku, Maui

Makers of AstroPlay are sore losers

Southwest Recreational Industry's reference to the Chicago Bears playing on an AstroPlay surface is misleading (Star-Bulletin, May 29). The Bears have no choice but to play on it as Soldier Field is under renovation, and the closest venue that can accommodate the number of season ticket holders is the University of Illinois. They have often stated their preference for natural grass, but they, too, recognize that the next best thing is Fieldturf.

Competition is fine, but having Fieldturf be considered comparable to AstroPlay is ridiculous. This can be confirmed by the numerous NFL teams that have been exposed to both types of surface. Furthermore, to make reference to the elevated cost is uneducated and dangerous on their part. We have analyzed the engineering of the venue, and understand the complexities of the conversion effort.

Fieldturf recently completed an installation at the Tokyo Dome, with one of the most complex conversion designs of any stadium. I invite SWRI to demonstrate the same experience.

SWRI should have offered AstroPlay to the Hawaii Stadium Authority at the outset of this project three years ago if it felt so confident about the product.

I am frustrated by this hindsight approach taken by SWRI. There is simply a new game in town (excuse the pun) and they could learn some lessons in gracious loss.

Wendy E. Dawson
Director of Marketing
Fieldturf Inc.

HPU brings home national accolades

The Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) at Hawaii Pacific University, for the second consecutive year, advanced to second runner up position at the SIFE USA National Exposition in Kansas City, Mo., on May 14.

This occurrence was extraordinary for at least three reasons:

1. Competing with almost 3,000 students from 250 universities around the country, HPU is the only Hawaii university to ever advance to this level in the finals.

2. As a direct result, Chatt Wright, president of Hawaii Pacific University, was honored as Most Supporting University President in the nation.

3. The SIFE-HPU team was amazingly international; composed of students from Italy, Austria, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, Finland, Russia and the USA.

These achievements deserve special recognition for further putting Hawaii on the international map as a place of exceptional diversity and unusual potential entrepreneurial excellence.

Hawaii Pacific University, attracting students from all over the world, is a strong Hawaii asset too often ignored or pushed aside. But it's reach and scope from a standing start more than 30 years ago, exceeds in many ways the University of Hawaii.

And it was all done without government financial or other support. Further, let us not forget to thank the professors who advise SIFE-HPU, Ken Schoolland and Francine Lowell. They are the "quiet but effective" ones. Bravo!

Richard Rowland
President
Grassroot Institute of Hawaii

Lingle's indifference to bill will cost votes

Republican Sens. Phil Gramm of Texas and Jon Kyl of Arizona head a group opposed to the Native Hawaiian recognition bill, now held up in the Senate.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Linda Lingle says she is too busy with her campaign to try to smooth its passage. She also said, "I don't have any specific program up in Washington to get the bill adopted." Note that in a trip to New York, she received thousands of dollars from mainland Republicans for her campaign.

The contrast between Hawaii's congressional delegation, who eagerly support the bill, with Lingle's half-hearted support and efforts is a sign of the differences between the Democrats and the Republicans on this issue.

Hawaiians should vote Democrat in the coming election for the governor.

How Tim Chang

Longing for return of king is a fairy tale

Raj Bose (Letters, Star-Bulletin, June 5) thinks Hawaii needs a king? What fairy tale land does he live in? Does he have a map showing how to get there? I would love to visit.

Amelia Woods

Where's the evidence of sign-waving danger?

I'd like to ask a question of Honolulu City Councilman Gary Okino and the other Council members who want to place restrictions on holding political signs. Do you have an example of even one serious traffic accident that occurred because of political sign-holders?

There is a ton of evidence about the real causes of traffic accidents in our community. Why doesn't the Council do something about those?

Bonita Newland
Kaneohe

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