Tired of lawmakers Tired of lawmakers ADVERTISING How can our legislators hear over 700 bills in a matter of a few months? What do they do the rest of the year? Let me guess: Try to rectify the mistakes in
Tired of lawmakers
How can our legislators hear over 700 bills in a matter of a few months? What do they do the rest of the year? Let me guess: Try to rectify the mistakes in the laws they just enacted? Why is there a mad rush to hear all these bills and pass junk legislation that we suffer from for the next bunch of years?
I want to introduce a bill to stop this nonsense and get our representatives to actually read what they are voting on so they can make informed decisions, as well as give the general public more than 48 hours of notice to make their research and testimony on any given issue.
What is happening now is not transparency; this is spoon-feeding the pig ’til it gags. Bills that are super important can be kept from being heard if a committee head has a conflict of interest … and the bill will just die without a chance until the next year.
While we are at it, why do our legislators get lifetime pensions after only representing us for as little as two years? This is ridiculous, and it is the reason the state and all states and governments are bankrupt. No one else in the real world gets these kind of perks, and the job they do as “civil servants” isn’t any more special than what you or I do.
Sara Steiner
Pahoa
Don’t take revenue
On Monday, the Maui News opinion page carried yet another article expressing its concern with the state trying to take tax money that has traditionally belonged to the counties. We’re talking, of course, about the counties’ share of the transient accommodation tax (SB 359) and, now, the public utility franchise tax (SB 1213).
Our illustrious state legislators undoubtedly consider it taking back what they’ve so kindly given the counties, but we in Hawaii’s counties see it as nothing less than theft!
Why does this come up in every legislative session? Because our legislators are cowards!
They haven’t the nerve to increase the income tax out of fear of losing votes. They haven’t the character to take on the efficiency of the massive bureaucracies they’ve created. And the unions have them completely cowed. You can’t fix a problem by just throwing money at it. You’ve got to fix it.
What’s worse is we the voters who sit idly by and lack the courage to demand better. We keep electing the same people and expect things to change. That’s insanity, people.
Al Rabold
Kula, Maui
