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POSTED: Thursday, October 30, 2008

Small businesses won't suffer under Obama

It is amazing that John McCain still espouses the belief that small business owners will have to pay elevated taxes under Barack Obama's tax plan. If he did some research, he would find that roughly 94 percent of small businesses earn less than $250,000 annually. My family has had a small flower shop for nearly 20 years and we are successful, but we do not even come near making $250,000 - even in the best of years!

I am from Hawaii and have lived all over the country, as well as abroad, and I find Hawaii to be a microcosm of what the country is going through. We have the extremely wealthy, the extremely poor and a huge middle class. We face higher prices at the gas pump, grocery store and everywhere else.

We have to learn to be much more independent and to stop relying on the shipment of goods. I believe that Obama understands this, first hand. But McCain does not. I respect him and thank him wholeheartedly for his sacrifices to our country, but I feel that he is too old, too out of touch, to help us out of the emotional and financial quagmire that the present administration has put us in.

Voters will remember Lingle's comments

It was embarrassing during the Republican convention to watch Gov. Linda Lingle effusively support Sarah Palin. Now she has the nerve to belittle Barack Obama's sense of Hawaii as home, instead of having the grace to rejoice with most of us that a person with island background has attained so much (”;Lingle dismisses Obama's local ties,”; Star-Bulletin, Oct. 25).

Lingle didn't get to Hawaii until well after college, but obviously thinks herself qualified to be its governor, so where does she find the gall to belittle the local ties of someone born and schooled here? Easy to express pride in Little Leaguers and football teams for national feats, but partisan politics have diminished her ability to do the right thing where Obama is concerned.

It seems obvious that her ambitions don't lie in Hawaii, which might explain why she seems so out of touch - and out of state, much of the time. But she will need our votes if she wants a national office, unless she gets an appointed post. As for getting our votes again - unlikely. We'll remember this.

Misleading ads tarnish McCain's good image

I will likely vote for Sen. Barack Obama in the upcoming election, though I've held the belief that should Sen. John McCain win I wouldn't be disappointed entirely. He is a man who fostered an image of independence and integrity. However, McCain ads asserting that Obama favors the teaching of sex to kindergartners and that he called Gov. Sarah Palin a pig, have put to question his integrity and independence. He had previously stated he would not take the low road in running his campaign. It is disappointing to realize that McCain is simply another politician who will use gutter politics to get elected.

Is it wise to put mavericks in charge?

Do we really want a maverick for a president? The president, as the leader of his party, has to represent his party's views in order to get things done. If someone has the reputation of being outside the mainstream he/she may enjoy that role, which will bring chaos to governing. How about two mavericks on the ticket?

During the vice presidential debate, Gov. Sarah Palin referred repeatedly to “;Wall Street corruption.”; I kept wondering what she was referring to and why. Is there “;Wall Street corruption”; and does she think it is responsible for our present crisis? This was the free market at work. The problem was created by decisions that were perfectly legal and immensely profitable for a long time. Should the government, or the investors, decide that these decisions are too risky? In any case, it would help to understand what the problem really is.

GOP isn't trying to suppress voting

Rhonda Sands' letter, “;Don't let the GOP keep you silent”; (Star-Bulletin, Oct. 27), was bothersome for many reasons.

» She dismisses ACORN's deliberate, systematic and widespread voter registration fraud across the country as a “;non-issue.”; Any attempt to introduce fraudulent registrations or votes is a threat to our democracy and should be considered a serious issue.

» She implies that the elections of President Bush were fake. That may be a popular theme among the anti-Bush crowd, but he is the legitimate president decided by legitimate elections.

» Sands raises the idea that the Republicans are somehow trying to hijack this election. She makes this ridiculous assertion with no evidence, and in light of the aforementioned fraud committed by Democratically sympathetic ACORN.

» Sands laments how voter rosters are being purged. Voter rosters are regularly purged because many voters neglect to provide required information, miss voting cycles, leave no forwarding information when they move, change names, or move out of state. If the rosters were not occasionally purged, they would fill up with inaccurate information.

Voting is an important right of citizenship, however, citizens must ensure they are properly registered and keep their registrations current in the community where they reside.

Don't let transit plans get derailed again

We have debated rail for more than 35 years. Countless studies have been done, and they all come to the same conclusion. There is no doubt that we need rail and we will all be better off for it.

Mayor Frank Fasi had the vision and tried to build rail in 1979, and again in 1992. But two women, Eileen Anderson in 1980 and Rene Mansho in 1993, prevented rail from being approved and killed those projects. Since then, traffic has just gotten worse and worse. This may be our last chance. Let's not let history repeat itself with Ann Kobayashi.

Are you listening?

EzWay plan surpasses rail in every way

Hannah Miyamoto's Oct. 20 letter regarding Ann Kobayashi's EzWay is filled with flawed assumptions. First, EzWay connects to Kamehameha and Farrington ramps, not just H-1 and H-2. This alone is a huge bottleneck relief that can nearly stand alone as a winner.

Second, the EzWay's two zipper lanes are for HOV3+, just like today's uncongested single lane zipper, not a congested HOV2+ as in the ill-planned Alternatives Analysis. That plus a third fixed-guideway for buses provides a true congestion-free transitway, regardless of conditions.

Third, unlike Mufi Hannemann's train, the EzWay is flexible and rules can be adjusted. The EzWay plans to allow energy-efficient hybrid or all-electric cars (not just 32+ mpg vehicles) to ride the EzWay as single-occupant vehicles. Should this become too prolific, the rules can be tuned to keep the EzWay full but not congested.

Finally, only university express buses will connect via Hotel Street at about 20 buses per hour, well within Hotel Street capacity. The other express buses will go to the proposed Auahi Street transit center via the Halekauwila underpass.

On every important metric, EzWay is far superior to Mufi's train, especially congestion relief and quality of life.

EzWay plan is neither easy nor feasible

In response to Ruben Reyes' Oct. 25 letter touting the purported benefits of Ann Kobayashi's EzWay:

Ann Kobayashi and Panos Prevedouros have misled the public about the feasibility of their proposed EzWay transit plan. It is simply not a fix-all, everything-to-everyone solution.

Reyes faults the proposed rail plan by pointing out that bus-to-rail transfers will be necessary. The EzWay will also require bus-to-bus transfers for the majority of commuters who use it. For example, the EzWay highlights the establishment of a major transfer station at Auahi Street. This will force thousands of bus commuters and tourists (who now have a direct TheBus trip) to transfer to one additional bus to complete their travel to final destinations less than a mile away, such as Ala Moana Center and Waikiki hotels.

The EzWay is highly inefficient and is not ready for prime time. Consider that the integration of private industry carriers as public transit providers depicted in the EzWay reflects Prevedouros' pandering to the Hawaii Highway Users Association, which does not support mass transit.

I urge Honolulu voters to look beyond Kobayashi's last-minute, ramshackle proposal. Please vote “;yes”; to support steel-on-steel rail this election day.

Rail will keep workers, commuters moving

For a while there, I was keeping track of how many stories about layoffs I read in the paper to check how our economy was doing. But there were so many and it was so depressing that I stopped after the first 25.

Frankly, we need jobs on our island. I look around and wonder where they will come from. Then I read about the rail project - 11,000 jobs! We need them now more than ever. That's why I support rail transit.

Other public projects could provide jobs

Recent letter writer Hannah Miyamoto supports the rail project to bring $900 million in federal funds to provide jobs.

To increase jobs, the mayor should fix Oahu's deteriorated infrastructure:

1) build 10- to 12-mile reversible high occupancy express lanes from Waikele to downtown to bypass the two bottlenecks at the H-1/H-2 merge and at the Middle Street merge - $1 billion,

2) upgrade the sewer plants and sewer mains - $1.2 billion,

3) close Waimanalo Gulch Landfill by building two major recycling factories - $1 billion,

4) use about $.5 billion for traffic fixes such as traffic light synchronlization, underpasses, spot lane additions and other localized bottleneck fixes,

5) fix parks, beaches, athletic complexes, pools and playgrounds.

Rail does not solve any of Honolulu's problems, but it steals the city's entire budget for solving the island's real problems.

 

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