Pay cuts better than less school

I have to admire the way the Hawaii State Teachers Association has set up its new contract with no pay cuts and every parent in the state is in an uproar.

They took no pay cut. A pay cut is when you work the same number of days but get paid less. The teachers are working fewer days but being paid the same amount for each day worked; their 8 percent pay cut is really an 8 percent work cut. At the same time they have managed to incite every student's parent into thinking that the only solution to this situation is to raid the Hurricane Relief Fund or raise the general excise tax to get more money so that teachers will end up with no cut at all.

Congratulations to the HSTA for inventing a crisis when it could have taken a real pay cut and continued to work the same number of days. Genius.

Don't raid fund to bail out HSTA

How could state Sen. Gary Hooser's short-sighted idea to bail out the Hawaii State Teachers Association's furlough decision by raiding the Hurricane Relief Fund be the only idea he could think of? With a budget of more than $2 billion, less than one-third of the Department of Education's employees are teachers. It seems that throwing more money at the DOE has only increased its bureaucracy. Charter schools receive less than $6,000 per student, while public schools receive more than $10,000 per student — and still test lower than the national average.

My husband was unemployed for four months. We are scraping by to send our kids to a small private school because we don't have faith in the public school system. If anything, return the money that we paid into the Hurrican Relief Fund so we can make ends meet. The HSTA made a despicable decision to sacrifice children's education, and is now trying to hold the public hostage. How did the HSTA and the DOE get so far removed from their mission to educate children?

Obama did not deserve Nobel

Excuse me, but I've always been under the impression that the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded for long concerted efforts and studies that bear results and contribute to our overall well-being — be it scientific, health cures or other contributions that change our very lives.

Since when does “;promising hope for a better future”; by President Barack Obama, with no change in sight, deserve recognition of such lofty, highly regarded proportions? He has barely had the time to change the furniture in the White House, let alone anything else.

Inouye ignores danger of debt

Our esteemed U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye eloquently defended his earmarks — as all his fellow congressmen do. Yet the collective wisdom of our elected officials has made the United States the largest debtor nation in the world.

Congress is spending at unsustainable levels and it must reverse course now. The consequences are in the news today: a weakening dollar, deficits that will be paid by future generations and creditor nations like China influencing our economic policy.

No nation has ever borrowed its way to prosperity. Now is the time to voice your oposition to all your elected representatives.

“;Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.”; — Thomas Paine