• The multi million white elephant • Economic growth is the solution to our mess The multi million white elephant After reading The Garden Island story “Ke Ala Hele Makalae rolling forward” on Dec. 9, one word prominently comes to
• The multi million white elephant • Economic growth is the solution to our mess
The multi million white elephant
After reading The Garden Island story “Ke Ala Hele Makalae rolling forward” on Dec. 9, one word prominently comes to mind — insanity. Complete insanity!
With 98 percent of the people on Kaua‘i using vehicles as their primary means of transportation, we have a small group of people pushing this multi-million dollar project that, at best, will benefit maybe half of 1 percent of the total population.
It has taken 10 years to complete 6.8 miles of this 23.6 mile path at a cost of over 5 million dollars per mile. And that outrageous amount for a 10-foot-wide slab of cement four inches thick whereas a county road 20 feet wide and one and a half inches thick and a mile long is $250,000 — something wrong with that picture!!
The key question should be: With the extremely costly path project benefiting only a few and county roads serving the great bulk of our people at lower cost what is the justification for the priority being given the path?
Then who in power is pushing a super costly boondoggle like this over far higher prioritized enterprises that we so badly need like alternate roads to alleviate traffic that proliferates more each day?
Where is the leadership from those we elected to see that the welfare of the majority is addressed and not push costly projects that will benefit so few?
From the conception of this path the concerns of the masses — vehicle commuters, the Hawaiian nation, the equestrian people and the Shoreline Hardening experts have been ignored and construction has been pushed at all cost.
The 98 percent of us who use our vehicles demand to know why our needs are being ignored for this multi-million dollar white elephant.
Glenn Mickens, Kapa‘a
Economic growth is the solution to our mess
John Zwiebel beats the drum for more taxes (the wealthy have the money!). But the reality is they don’t have the money. That incomprehensible vapor trail of zeros run up by the tax-and-spend liberals can never be paid off by confiscating the working capital of producers. Every dollar the government spends is a dollar that could be put into the productive segment of the economy to generate wealth and tax-paying jobs.
Economic growth is the only way out of this unholy mess. And punishing the achievers, as gratifying as it is to the resentful left, will only hasten the collapse. We need more taxpayers, not more taxes. But most of all we need less government.
The beast must now borrow 46 cents of every dollar it spends. The money supply has been tripled and the price of gasoline has more than doubled under Obama. The president has offered no real spending cuts and insists on raising taxes, something he opposed in January 2010. Is there ever a point when the left thinks that government is too big? At least one new poll shows voters think so by better than three-to-one, begging the question: Why did they put this mob back in office?
John Burns, Princeville
