• Excise tax boost • Iraq attack Excise tax boost Neighbor Island legislators and their constituents should be very wary of supporting the general excise tax increase for the Honolulu choo-choo. The C&C of Honolulu ultimately will have to borrow
• Excise tax boost
• Iraq attack
Excise tax boost
Neighbor Island legislators and their constituents should be very wary of supporting the general excise tax increase for the Honolulu choo-choo. The C&C of Honolulu ultimately will have to borrow $2,200,000,000 to $3,000,000,000 for construction.
The proposed 1—2 percent rate increase now is just seed money to get the Feds on board — and will not begin to pay for building it.
When Honolulu taxpayers are faced with paying off the real construction cost debt and bond interest, they will face three options — 1) Cough up much more money through more Honolulu General excise tax increases and huge Honolulu property tax increases (un-likely), or 2) Let Honolulu go bankrupt (unlikely) , or 3) Have Honolulu’s legislators in the House and Senate raise income taxes and General excise taxes statewide to pay the debt service (very likely). And Honolulu has the majority in both houses, 18/25 in the Senate and 35/51 in the House.
These numbers could even override a veto. Polls show that the vast majority of Honolulu residents don’t want the tax increase. Why should neighbor island lawmakers support it? It can only go wrong for the neighbor islands — why take the chance?
- Larry Bartley
Kailua, O‘ahu
Iraq attack
The response of July 8, written by a resident well-known for her activist role as a Democrat, is so fraught with distortions of the truth, outright false-hoods, and a warped knowledge of actual and historical facts, that one is almost at a loss as to where to begin. Apparently the writer gets her information from sources such as moveon.org, the michealmoore website, and other sources whose commonality is their hatred of the President and their inability to be truthful.
Al Qaeda was responsible for 9/11, and there are numerous verifiable and unassailable sources that show that saddam and al qaeda were linked, and that members of al qaeda had a close working relationship with saddam, who offered OBL refuge after we took out the Taliban in Afghanistan.
