Posted on: Monday, March 21, 2005

Letters to the Editor

Here, take all of my money, but then ...

No matter what happens to the economy, up or down, our government officials perpetually have the problem of not having enough money. No matter what happens to the economy, up or down, hard-working families have a tough time making ends meet.

After considerable thought, I've come up with the perfect solution: a 100 percent tax rate. All income that doesn't go to the federal government should go to the state and city.

In return, everyone living in Hawai'i would have free housing, free transportation, free medical, free food, free clothes, free cable, free vacations, free haircuts, free veterinary care, free golf, free insurance, free first-year birthday parties, free designer sunglasses, free season tickets to UH football, free everything!

Our schools would be repaired, our roads smooth, our sewers intact and our parks clean. Hawai'i would truly be paradise.

Now, if we could only persuade our politicians to raise taxes.

Anti-Hawaiian letter is more of the same

It's worth noting that frequent letter writer Earl Arakaki is the lead plaintiff in the ongoing lawsuit to extinguish programs dedicated to bettering the lives of Native Hawaiians.

In his latest missile (March 10 letter, "Bills would require special treatment"), Arakaki spews more of his anti-Hawaiian venom by researching and listing bills, only some of which were proposed by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, and many of which have been tabled.

But the bigger picture is that if Arakaki's side prevails in court, all Hawai'i taxpayers will pay a heavy price.

If he wins his court case, Arakaki v. Lingle, Hawai'i taxpayers will lose some $70 million a year that the federal government grants for programs that help Native Hawaiians. These are the result of over 100 congressional statutes that provide for the special status of Native Hawaiians. These programs help educate and train people, and provide affordable housing and healthcare.

According to a recent policy brief by the nonprofit Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement, using the multiplier effect translates that figure into $147 million in sales, $69 million in wages and salaries and more than 3,100 jobs in the state economy, most of which are held by non-Hawaiians.

The Arakaki plaintiffs ignore the moral justifications behind these many programs. They ignore history. They ignore justice. And in the end, if they prevail, they will simply hurt every person in this state by ignoring them as well.

Inappropriate message

As I was watching the UH baseball game on TV the other night, I couldn't help but notice the ad behind home plate for Bud Light. Hmmm ... at a college baseball game. What message are they trying to send again?

Bill would guard against ID theft

Your March 14 article by Peter Boylan, "ID theft: No one's immune, cases show," is on target. With Hawai'i ranked 25th out of the 50 states in reported identity thefts per capita, we need to take all reasonable steps to minimize the risk of this type of crime.

The Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs proposed a bill to the Legislature this year that would have reduced the risk for identity theft victims (House Bill 655/Senate Bill 764) by allowing victims to freeze the release of their credit history by credit-reporting agencies. This safeguard would have made it virtually impossible for an identity thief to obtain a loan under false pretenses. Unfortunately, the bill died in both houses during the first half of the legislative session.

Without benefit of the bill, victims are limited to canceling credit sources only after the thief has accessed them. Four other states have recently passed similar legislation: California, Texas, Vermont and Louisiana. We hope that the Legislature recognizes the threat posed by identity theft and finds a way to resurrect this important bill, which is aimed at protecting all of us.

'The Captive' review was off the mark

Contrary to your reviewer's reaction (" 'Captive' imagery stronger than message," March 11), UH-Manoa graduate student Frank Episale's interpretation of the early-19th-century monodrama "The Captive" did not take Lewis' script "too far"; rather, it allowed it to speak to the post-Abu Ghraib present.

While the reviewer admits the play pushed us "to look at things we might want to avoid seeing," the sense that it leaves the reader with, using terms like "prisoner of war," is that the internees are themselves to blame for the illegal occupation of their country and thus for their own torture. What this ignores is that they are not "POWs" in the internationally accepted sense; rather, they are suspended within a legal void mandated solely by the commander-in-chief, in violation of all international accords put into place largely by the United States itself in the aftermath of Nazi Germany and World War II.

Only by bracketing all of this could the review deny how apt Episale's adaptation really is in a time in which, like that of Lewis' original, the meaning of words like "freedom" and "captivity" are becoming increasingly indistinguishable.

Barriers are needed on dangerous roadway

We need to rally together to make the city responsible for making the Kunia roadway safer. The tragic deaths on March 1 of three members of the Manzano family touched all of our hearts. My prayers go out to Mrs. Manzano and her surviving family members.

Why can't there be concrete barriers to divide traffic on this very treacherous road, well-lighted intersections, especially at truck crossings, and designated "pull-offs" at various places along the roadway?

I have often traveled from Schofield to Waipahu and have seen impatient drivers pass one or two cars or even try to pass a truck, sometimes on very dangerous curves or hills in Kunia.

The barriers would not allow for passing and would be a blessing since they would slow cars.

It doesn't matter if there are "no passing" signs along the Kunia route. People do it anyway. If barriers can save one more precious life, they are worth it.

Legislature should adopt earned income tax credit

The earned income tax credit (EITC) benefits very-low-wage workers by decreasing the amount of income taxes they must pay. The federal version of the EITC is refundable, which means that in some cases, a family may receive a "refund" of up to $4,300 even if its income was too low to pay any taxes.

Earned income tax credits provide tax reductions and wage supplements for low- and moderate-income working families. The federal tax system has included an EITC since 1975, with major expansions in 1986, 1990 and 1993, and an additional expansion in 2001. More than 19 million families and individuals filing federal income tax returns, or roughly one out of every seven families that file, claim the federal EITC.

I have witnessed the benefits of the EITC over the years in the lives of many families that successfully made the transition off welfare and out of homelessness into the workplace and market-priced rental housing. In Gordon Pang's March 8 article, "Lower-paid workers likely to get tax break," one of the critics of the idea of a state EITC said that the EITC was "initially designed to refund low-wage earners what they pay in Social Security and unemployment taxes," but that "over the years, they just pulled numbers out of the air." The EITC is calculated to result in moving large numbers of people out of poverty. The success of the program has been documented in a 2004 study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington, D.C.-based public policy research organization, as follows:

"The federal credit now lifts more children out of poverty than any other government program. Some 4.8 million people, including 2.6 million children, are removed from poverty as a result of the federal EITC. The federal EITC also has been proven effective in encouraging work among welfare recipients; studies show it has a large impact in inducing more single mothers to work."

So if this is something that Congress "just pulled out of the air," then perhaps our state legislators should be reaching into that very same air for the benefit of the children living in poverty right here in Hawai'i.

The federal EITC is the largest anti-poverty program in America. It has lifted millions of poor Americans out of poverty. Seventeen states and the District of Columbia already have their own version of the EITC in spite of the same types of budget shortfalls that confront us in Hawai'i. These states have made the commitment to help their residents in their pursuit of a better life because it is the right thing to do.

Schools are succeeding as well

Thursday's front page article highlighted the 24 schools that will undergo "restructuring" as part of the No Child Left Behind Act. Hawai'i's public-school students are often stereotyped as being unable to succeed, and situations such as this exacerbate this misconception. But I have a different version of this scholastic story to share with you: a local success story that counters this undeserved stereotype.

The story begins in Kailua and stars the students, teachers and administration of Kalaheo High School, where there is a schoolwide belief that these kids can and do succeed.

This chapter of the story involves my annual Legislative Roadshow, an interactive program that I conduct at the Kailua elementary, middle and high schools. For this program, the students are asked to conduct research on current legislation and then participate with me in a mock committee hearing, where the students provide both written and oral testimony on a variety of issues. They also participate in a funding vote, deciding which of two vital school programs will receive funds.

Last week, my staff and I brought this roadshow to Kalaheo High School, where the students and teachers entered into this debate with enthusiasm, resourcefulness and a good deal of critical thinking.

We met with 150 ninth-graders and their teachers from four social studies classes to discuss issues such as genetically modified organisms, how to solve the bottle deposit redemption problems, graduated driver's licensing and elderly driver's license renewal, and the legalization of gambling. The students sunk their teeth into what are some very complex issues and came up with good insights into what we adults here at the Legislature continue to try to understand and perfect.

What I discovered, as I have in years past at a variety of schools, is that the students are articulate and impassioned, having spent much time and thought on preparing for and participating in this legislative exercise. Their high level of involvement and productivity is made possible and matched only by the dedication and hard work of their teachers and the support of the school administrations. I am impressed time and again by the willingness and ability of both students and teachers to study, learn, question and explore.

We also met last week with 'Aikahi Elementary School third-graders, where the students eagerly discussed bills on improved nutrition and P.E. in schools. The third-graders had a wonderful grasp of the governmental process and of why P.E. and healthy foods are important to them.

The teachers and administrators at these schools truly help their students to achieve educational goals and to eliminate negative stereotypes.

So we should not feel discouraged by the news that some of our schools need advanced improvement. We must do what we can to support and encourage these schools. In doing so, we will continue to have success stories in Hawai'i's public school system.