Regressive and wrong
Regressive and wrong
It is our high general excise tax that makes Hawaii the second-worst state in the nation for putting the tax burden on the poor.
In Hawaii, the top 1 percent pay just 7 percent of their income in taxes, while the middle class (80 percent of our people) pay about 12 percent. The poorest group (the bottom fifth of the population) pay a whooping 13.5 percent of the income in taxes because of the hidden GET (according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy and the Hawaii Appleseed Center for Law and Economic Justice).
It is the reliance on the GET — instead of property and income taxes — that puts the extra burden on the lower incomes.
Our representatives in county and state government know they are doing this. It is regressive taxation — and it is wrong.
So, let’s watch and see who is looking out for the people.
Noelie Rodriguez
Ninole
False frog claims
A recent letter criticized a proposal to the Hawaii County Council for a grant to purchase citric acid for control of coqui frogs in North Kohola.
The writer claimed that citric acid treatment would kill geckos, skinks, insects and other nontargets in addition to the frogs. This is patently false.
Citric acid spray works on frogs because frogs have moist, permeable skin. Other animals with dry, impermeable integument, such as insects and other arthropods with chitinous exoskeletons and lizards with scaly skin, are not affected.
Other moist-skin species sensitive to citric acid spray would be slugs.
Citric acid was selected by the USDA for coqui frog control because it works on frogs and it was already in widespread use in agricultural products on landscapes. Coqui frog control is possible in Kohola because that part of the Big Island is geologically oldest. The soils are well-developed and the frogs cannot retreat deep underground. Pruning understory vegetation and clearing leaf litter also removes retreat sites for frogs.
In Puna, geologically young a‘a lava substrates offer frogs a vast underground network of retreats with plenty of arthropod food. They can live a troglodyte life during extended periods of drought. Beyond clearing understory vegetation, coqui frog control has as yet proven intractable on those landscapes.
Dense populations of coqui frogs on Hawaii Island remain a potent food base for young brown tree snakes, should they become established to then grow up and turn attention to bird prey.
William J. Mautz
Hilo