• UI tax moderation needed • Let the people decide intelligently • House cleaning • Horses do that too UI tax moderation needed The governor’s position has always been to do what’s best for our state (“Prudent planning key going
• UI tax moderation needed • Let the people decide intelligently • House cleaning • Horses do that too
UI tax moderation needed
The governor’s position has always been to do what’s best for our state (“Prudent planning key going forward,” In Our Opinion, Jan. 31). The governor’s proposal (SB2732/HB2579) is the best proposal for our economy because it provides greater tax moderation at a time when we need it most and will provide a tax savings of $497 million over the next four years.
Gov. Lingle believes this $497 million is better left in our economy than in a trust fund in Washington, D.C. With support from the community, this proposal can be as feasible and realistic as it is necessary to protect jobs and provide tax relief.
Second, the argument that if the state had better planned we could be giving out tax reductions now is without basis. Even if the Legislature did not enact Act 110, the Unemployment Trust Fund would still be facing fiscal challenges. We are paying out about 30 million a month in benefits to about 22,000 UI claimants. Playing the “blame game” is not productive. Instead what we need now is community support for meaningful UI tax moderation to help preserve jobs and keep Hawai‘i businesses afloat.
Darwin Ching, Director, Department of Labor and Industrial Relations
Let the people decide intelligently
The letter of Carol Bain (“Let the people decide,” Letters, Dec. 20) advances two arguments in support of convincing the Charter Review Commission to include the question of a “strong county-manager” system on the ballot.
First: She utilizes a commonly used pseudo-persuasive communication device by assuming and asserting that “the will of the people” requires or mandates the CRC to put the question on the ballot.
The fallacy of this arguement lies in the fact that no poll has been taken supporting her conclusion that “the will of the people” is what she says it is. If there is a ‘will of the people” on the subject, I, personally, could assert the same by saying that “the will of the people” is against putting the subject on the ballot based, at least, by encouragement from friends and strangers to keep writing my letters to the editor.
Second: In spite of her criticism of a prior election experience wherein the voters were not provided “a detailed list of particulars, analysis, research and findings” (to enable her to vote intelligently), she now urges that the only question before the CRC is simply “whether they will allow the question on the ballot”..thereby suggesting that there is no need to know or have available “a detailed list of pariculars, analysis, research and findings” before asking the voters to vote on the question. She adds to the inconsistency: “If the people vote ‘yes’ then work on the details and implementation.”
I believe that the voters need to know, basically, before asking them to “buy a pig in a poke:” what are the specific structural deficiencies in our current system of government which cannot be polished or corrected by amendment to our Kauai Charter and how a new system can serve us better.
Let the people decide if there is a question to decide…but let them decide intelligently with all the facts available to them.
Alfred Laureta, Lihu‘e
House cleaning
On Jan. 19, the perennially Democratic state of Massachusetts elected a Republican U.S. senator — and by quite a comfortable margin!
Their voters were fed up with the “tax and spend” atmosphere in Washington and voted accordingly. It is hoped that Hawai‘i voters will remember this at the proposed special election (if it materializes) and the mid-term elections in November. Let’s all continue the needed “house cleaning.”
Joe Stoddard, Wailua Homesteads
Horses do that too
Who would have thought that one can discover divine revelation by reading the Letters section of The Garden Island?
But if you combine the theological ideas from both Jan Rudinoff (“Response to Pastor Iannucci,” Letters, Feb. 1) with Bettejo Dux (“Homosexuality and the Word of God,” Letters, Feb. 1) we have an astounding conclusion!
Observe: Mr. Rudinoff asserts that God is only what we label Him to be by whatever definition we attribute to Him. Ms. Dux states her credibility to make moral judgments based on the fact that she is “an intelligent human being in the 21st Century.” When we combine these two ideas we are forced to make this logical conclusion: Bettejo is God!
And it gets better. Because she states she has made her judgments regarding human morality based on her observation of horses, I can’t wait for the next installment of the word of God according to Bettejo. Maybe she will tell us all to eat our own feces. Horses do that too, you know.
Dain Spore, Koloa
