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Honolulu Lite Charles Memminger |
The economy sucks
like a HooverIt isn't Honolulu's fault that it is slogging through a financial morass thicker than poi. Just about every city in the country is slogging through financial morasses, although theirs aren't as thick as poi. New Orleans' morass is as thick as gumbo; Boise's is as thick as, uh, mashed potatoes; and Los Angeles' is as thick as, hold on, I'll get it ... oh yeah, Sally Struthers.
The economy sucks like a Hoover, and we aren't talking J. Edgar.
Every city is struggling to come up with ways to pay for services without having to raise taxes. Politicians hate to raise taxes, especially when you're looking. So they find other sneaky ways to get their hands in your wallet. Like Honolulu, some cities are considering raising bus fares, increasing fees for things like dog licenses and auto registration, and charging for activities that were previously free, like breathing.
Some cities are going straight for their residents' jugulars by introducing gambling. The mayor of Chicago wants to put a big old casino right downtown so nobody can sneak home after work with any money in their pockets. New York City smacked a big tax increase on cigarettes and then banned anyone from smoking in bars, which seems to me to be just slightly idiotic. That's like putting a tax on heroin and then forcing everyone into detox.
Mayor Jeremy Harris and the City Council have been considering the usual dopey ideas for taking our money without making it look like a tax. The mayor's plan to charge for garbage collection thankfully ended up in the Dumpster. I don't get it. You show free movies on the beach to tourists and then charge residents to get rid of their rubbish. I say, pick up the rubbish for free and charge anyone silly enough to sit in the sand to watch a movie that's already gone to video, especially if they aren't from around here. It's always better to take money from visitors than it is to milk the homeys, which is why tourists currently pay a hotel room tax, a hotel hallway tax, a hotel elevator tax and a hotel sittin'-in-the-lobby tax.
The City Council wants to sell parking lots and raise bus fares and, I believe, institute a pidgin-user fee, which is different from the pigeon-viewer fee idea that died in committee.
Charging people to speak pidgin is a stroke of genius and so, frankly, couldn't have come from the City Council. It's just one of the many new and exciting ideas I've come up with to get Honolulu out of it's poi-like economic morass. I'll be disclosing some of these ideas in Sunday's "Honolulu Lite." I suspect the mayor and other elected officials will fall upon these ideas like a pack of wild dogs on Purina Beggin' Strips.
It's time to take chances on bold new ideas. If that means selling billboard advertising space on City Councilwoman Ann Kobayashi, so be it.
Charles Memminger, winner of National Society of Newspaper Columnists awards, appears Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. E-mail cmemminger@starbulletin.com