Property tax hikes hurting kupuna

Recently I received my property tax bill. It was up more than 20% compared to last year! Did my property really go up 20% in value? I don’t think so. I did nothing to my house. So if that is the criteria the city goes by, when property values go down, will my property tax go down, too? Of course not!

The city continues to make life so difficult for us senior retired people. Every year houses are built or upgraded, condos are built, all producing more property taxes. Basically the city is double dipping.

Years ago, Los Angeles homeowners got tired of their city continually increasing property taxes by huge amounts so they started a petition that went to the voter the next November. It won. It proposed that the property tax revert to three years earlier and that the city could only increase taxes by a fixed amount over three years.

I am too old to start a petition, but would encourage some younger folks to think about it. The city will go on increasing our property taxes every year. Oh dear: greedy government, poor citizens.

Toby Allen

Hawaii Kai

Public officials’ salaries unbalanced

I have two friends in opposing parties running for Hawaii House District 38.

To them I say I am concerned about public officials’ salaries. Some are unbelievably high, while others, such as those for our representatives and teachers, are paltry and pathetic.

It concerns me that the state superintendent of education, an administrator, makes $80,000 more than the governor, while the teachers, the critical part of our education system, struggle to make ends meet.

Where is the legislative oversight?

James Amos

Mililani

Trump didn’t get majority of votes

I don’t know if Kris Schwengel’s letter was edited or if he fails to realize how presidential elections work in this country (“Majority of Americans will decide about Trump,” Star-Advertiser, July 22).

If the “majority of Americans” was the criteria for election, Donald Trump never would have been president, having lost the popular vote by close to 3 million.

I’m no “flaming libtard” (though I do lean a bit left), but I’ll never understand how people never recognized back in the 2016 Republican primaries what a crooked charlatan Trump is. It seems that every claim he makes about his opponents (Democrat or Republican) was something he either did or was planning to do, including stealing an election.

Maybe, instead of being barred from office, he’ll just end up behind bars. If he were to be reelected in 2024, our country would show it has a much shorter attention span than the Philippines.

Paul Campbell

Waipahu

Hawaii’s woes not same as nation’s

Guilty as charged (“Majority of Americans will decide about Trump,” Star-Advertiser, Letters, July 22)!

The Hawaii Democratic Party is responsible for myriad problems. Such is the drawback to single-party rule.

However, to extrapolate those failures to the nation is a serious mistake. The writer lists a decrease in public safety (did Democrats attack Capitol police officers?); out-of-control inflation (are Democrats responsible for inflation in Europe?); an immigration wave (a generations-long problem; and who separated children from their parents?).

Hawaii voters will have to solve our state’s problems, but nationally it is Republicans who are feckless, reckless and clueless.

Jim Keefe

Waikiki

Tax fossil fuel imports, not food

Lauren Zirbel, president of the Hawaii Food Industry Association, made excellent arguments regarding the need to remove Hawaii’s general excise tax on food and medicine (“For food security and resilience, cut isles’ most regressive tax,” Star-Advertiser, Island Voices, July 19).

If we are to weather this inflationary economic storm, we should do as she says and eliminate the general excise tax for groceries and medicine. This would lessen the sting of inflation for all of us, particularly low-income households.

One thing she does not mention, however, is how the state ought to compensate for the resulting decrease in tax revenue. One great option would be for the Legislature to levy a tax on fossil fuel imports. This would address the budget shortfall, promote resilience through local energy production (wind, solar, geothermal), and incentivize consumers to emit less planet-warming carbon dioxide. Wins all around!

David Jantz

Kapolei

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