Former state Sen. Gary Hooser offers up more government solutions to affordable housing and income equality that just don’t work (“Bold leadership can increase affordable housing, curb poverty,” Star-Advertiser, Island Voices, Oct. 19).
Increasing all minimum wages to $15 an hour will only result in paying more income taxes to the state. Hawaii starts taxing income at $1. If the state were to give tax deductions up through $25,000, that would more significantly increase the working poor’s take-home pay.
Having the government purchase land through a new tax on real estate investment trusts and then build “affordable” housing to resell makes a mockery of private land ownership. Why not remove the general excise tax on rent to help the poor afford to rent?
Hooser doesn’t understand that government does not solve problems; it just creates new ones. If we weren’t spending $10 billion on rail, we would have plenty of money.
Mary Monohon
Kailua
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Only diplomacy will work on N. Korea
A front-page story featured some dubious assertions by retired Air Force Gen. Dan Leaf (“State’s missile defense urge,” Star-Advertiser, Oct. 18).
He declared that North Korea has “the initiative on all fronts” and that “improving Hawaii’s defenses” will put that regime on the defensive. Leaf’s solution: Ring Hawaii with (very expensive) defensive missiles.
The situation is much more complex. Actually, building a nuclear capacity currently makes good policy sense for the North Korean leadership. With their population suffering severe economic woes, the regime desperately needs to appear to mobilize support around its security.
Ironically, President Donald Trump’s heavy-handed threats to nuke the North plays into their hands. And having witnessed recent U.S. invasions of Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries lacking nuclear weapons, the regime has quite rationally chosen to build a nuclear strike force to guarantee its security.
Nowhere, however, is there evidence that it plans to invite its own destruction by unleashing nuclear missiles on Hawaii or anywhere else. This is our own hysteria.
It is time to craft diplomatic solutions to this crisis, which must include guarantees that North Korea will not be targeted for a U.S. attack.
Noel Kent
Manoa
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Avoid nuclear war with peaceful means
I am 93 years old, awaiting God’s call.
I am aware of the Hiroshima bombing — a disgrace to man’s sanity. I was in battle on Aug. 5, 1945, in the Philippines.
The North Koreans are a proud people. With the strong help of China, set up an exploratory commission, approved by the nations that have imposed sanctions on North Korea. The commission’s goal: Convert nuclear energy to useful purposes.
Hire the nuclear scientists from North Korea and other countries. Pay them well and offer them citizenship in America and elsewhere.
Let us stop nuclear wars.
Domingo Los Banos
Hawaii Kai
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The richest benefit from GOP tax plan
The national Republicans are touting that their tax plan would give the greatest tax cuts in history. What they don’t tell you is that 67.4 percent of all those tax cuts would go the richest 1 percent in our nation, while 1 in 6 of all taxpayers would see their taxes rise. Here are some statistics from 1961 and 2013 adjusted for inflation:
>> For 90 percent of Americans, for every dollar earned in 1961 they saw an increase in 2013 to $1.30.
>> For the top 400 taxpayers, for every dollar they made in 1961 they made $17.50 in 2013.
This has been the trend for the past 52 years. Now that we have millionaires and billionaires running the federal government, can we really believe their new tax plan will lower taxes for the middle class?
Sandra M. Barker
Hawaii Kai
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Trump’s patriotism that of a scoundrel
President Donald Trump wraps himself in patriotic fervor to condemn those he feels demean the flag by their peaceful protest. Too bad he did not feel that patriotic fervor when he sought and received five draft deferments, enabling him to duck military service.
Samuel Johnson put it best: “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”
Peter Chisteckoff
Mililani Mauka
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Better ways to treat least of our brethren
Obviously Tom Bellit didn’t familiarize himself with St. Damien and St. Marianne Cope’s endearing legacy when he offered his Teflon-coated solution for a place “capable of housing, feeding and treating hundreds of these vagrants, bums, and mentally ill” (“Kalaupapa is ideal homeless ‘safe zone,’” Star-Advertiser, Letters, Oct. 17).
Auwe! Shades of the past continue to cast a shadow as Bellit sports his true colors. Not in his Kailua but Kalaupapa, the isolated peninsula on Molokai, the Friendly Isle, where “delivery would be much more humane this time around.”
Out of sight. Out of mind. Ainokea. Is this the way one treats the least of our brethren?
Bobbie Pidot-Guffey
Kaneohe
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Don’t expect help from Washington
Seeing the tragedy now unfolding in Puerto Rico should make every person living in Hawaii stop and really think.
Like Puerto Rico, we are an island. What would we do if a disaster like Hurricane Maria were to hit here? How long before help could reach us? What if airports were severely damaged?
It’s five days at least from the mainland by ship.
It’s time to really check your food, water and medications, and be prepared, because no help seems to be coming from Washington.
Daci Armstrong
Kakaako
