In an editorial today in the Honolulu Advertiser complaining about a bill to repeal the presidential public financing system the editorial board inadvertently revealed its true agenda.

That’s a phony argument designed to divert attention from the real purpose here: eliminating a program that has made at least some impact on leveling the playing field in presidential politics.

The public financing program is paid through a voluntary checkoff of $3 against tax liability. Clearly, it is in need of reform. The checkoff limit should be increased, and candidates should be forced to choose whether to accept the money for the entire campaign or forgo it entirely.

First of all the supposed “leveling (of) the playing field” wasn’t enough and resulted in the McCain-Feingold Campaign Reform bill which then resulted in the Supreme Court throwing out the First Amendment (as it did the Fifth in Kelo). Some improvement.

Second, the idea that “candidates should be forced” is antithetical to the very principles this nation was founded upon. What else does the editorial board want to “force” people to do? Where to live? What to eat? Where does it end? Or does it ever?

I think we know the answer.

We received the following press release about a new discovery from a friend of ours. You may find it interesting.

It’s unlikely that many people will read hundreds of pages detailing 278 programs in the PriceWaterhouseCoopers audit released this year on the Department of Education, but the key problem highlighted is that appropriations are allocated by “program” and staff ratio formulas required in union contracts versus per pupil funding based on the individual cost of educating that student.

When the Hawaii State Legislature passed Act 51, “The Reinventing Education Act of 2004,” 70 percent of $1.7 billion in appropriations was supposed to go to schools. Instead, the DOE merely converted statewide, union-mandated position allocations into salaries that are charged off to each schools budget, whether the school needs that staff or not.

The pilot schools under the Act received only about half of the $7,700 per student average that they should have received under the 70 percent formula. Why are taxpayers spending $11,000 per student, while the schools are getting less than $4,000 per student? What is the other $7,000 per student being spent on?

Yet again the “Smart Growth” people have managed to make housing increasingly unaffordable. In Eugene, Oregon (of all places) smart growth policies have so limited new housing construction that housing prices are gentrifying the population “right before our eyes”. When will this madness stop? Still the steadfast refusal of smart growth crowd to modify their positions while at the same time acknowledging the problems they are creating is disheartening. This Out of Control Blog item details the issue, which parallels the problem we have here. How many homeless do we have to have before we realize these policies don’t work.

The American Dream Coalition has a number of articles up that are very interesting and pertinent to what we are facing in this state. The upcoming Eminent Domain debacle in New Orleans, where the government is contemplating using the “usufruct” concept to simply take people’s homes.

Las Vegas is now considering a 33 mile light-rail line. At least there the editorial board of the Review Journal gets it right about light rail: “It costs a fortune, it doesn’t relieve congestion, it never pays for itself and it actually hurts mass transit ridership”. Not that rail advocates will ever admit that.

From the failure of “smart growth” in Maryland to Portland, zoning and other land use planning issues, to the logic behind such policies “Portland land-use planners are excited to report that the urban-growth boundary has driven land values up so high that it is now profitable for developers to buy existing suburban homes, tear them down, and replace them with high-density housing” the blog covers a new list of important issues. Don’t miss this one.

The president of the Heritage Foundation, Edwin J. Feulner at a joint press conference called for cutting the federal budget in the face of the extensive damage along the gulf coast. One paragraph in his remarks illustrates his main point:

Recent calls to return money earmarked for pet pork projects in the highway bill have resonated with taxpayers throughout the country. Why? Because Main Street Americans recognize that money is better spent on hurricane recovery projects than on vanity projects like bike trails and $220 million bridges to nowhere.

His remarks are extremely apropos coming on the heels of the recent amendments offered by freshman Senator from Oklahoma Tom Coburn:

He offered amendments requiring that previously approved earmarks favored by colleagues be cancelled and the tax dollars instead spent on hurricane recovery.

But the majority of the senate can’t have that.

What Coburn got in response was pure bipartisan outrage.

The majority of our legislators play the game of bringing home the bacon to benefit the “local economy”. In reality they are buying votes and full well know it. The list of who voted which way is at the end of the op-ed. No surprises which way Hawaii’s senators voted.

Today in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin House Majority Leader Marcus Oshiro (D, Wahiawa-Poamoho)was quoted as saying:

Prior to the cap, when prices on the mainland went up, Hawaii prices went up, but when mainland prices came back down, Hawaii prices stayed the same. Under the fair gas price law, Hawaii consumers are protected from that kind of questionable pricing of the past.

The following link goes to a chart that demonstrates that this statement is not true. For the period from April, 2004 to April, 2005 the average prices in Honolulu not only mirrored those on the mainland but were less volatile. The parallel lines are the averages of each, and they are nearly identical.

The wholesale Gas Price Cap has imposed this same volatility on Hawaii consumers, which has cost them money, not saved them money. When will politicians learn that they can’t pass laws that manage the free-market better than it can manage itself. As noted in an earlier blog today, shortages and other problems are already starting to occur. And this is just the beginning.

Link to the chart here. (Thanks to Brian Barbata.)

(dn)

It might not be any consolation since Hawaii is at the bottom of the heap

No state had a higher average eighth-grade reading score in 2005 than in 2003, and seven states — Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Utah and West Virginia — had significantly lower scores.

but there isn’t that much difference between the best and the worst in this report. Students all across the nation are either not being taught properly or not caring to learn much. Hard to decide which it is. The top story from Stateline.org is here.
(dn)

The only solution that administrators ever consider is more money. Education Beat Hawaii caught right on to this.

No sooner than the administration of Gov. Linda Lingle announced a projected budget surplus of more than $600 million, state Superintendent of Education Pat Hamamoto publicly demanded claim on $359 million of that surplus for capital improvement funds and $84.3 million for operating funds.

It isn’t as if the DOE is going to spend this money wisely. As a local daily newspaper reports here, the problem is bigger than just money, it is policy.

(dn)

The latest Tax Foundation publication “Tax Watch” has just been released. The pdf online version is available here. While the publication covers many subjects what is particularly interesting is it looks like the Hawaii no longer has the distinction of having the highest gas taxes in the nation, having been surpassed by New York.

New York – $62.9 per gallon

Hawaii – $60.1 per gallon

So now we are number 2. Yeah!

It isn’t clear whether this includes the 4 percent GE Tax. What is signifcant is the tax burden is still greater than the price swings we have been experiencing since the implimentation of the wholesale Gas Cap.

As an aside, the shortages at gas stations predicted by economists are already consistently appearing, as this article in one of our daily newspapers documents. Not only that, people are get stranded on the road trying to make it until the next projected drop in prices.

The supporters are still claiming “success”! How much economic damage and inconvenience do we have to suffer before they will admit the truth?

(dn)