Unfunded liabilities must be addressed

Most of the Letters to the Legislature (Star-Advertiser, Dec. 30) referred to spending for individual projects.

We can’t afford more spending. We should add funds to the government employees’ retirement and benefit funds.

As of June 2012, the unfunded fund liabilities totaled $21.2 billion. Last March, there was an appropriation proposal to pay $50 million into the fund. This was deleted in favor of conducting a study of the problem.

To put this in perspective, if we added $50 million to the fund each year, the unfunded liability would be gone in 424 years.Just think, if we increased this to $100 million a year, the time could be shortened to only 212 years!

Wouldn’t it be good idea to get started before our state bonding capabilities power disappears?

Bob Stengle
Aina Haina

Recycling program hurting consumers

Another green program has gone wrong. The consumers are losing again.

On all of our purchases of beverages in cans, plastic and glass bottles we pay 6.5 cents a container. When we turn this in to be recycled, the consumer gets 5 cents per container. We lose 1.5 cents.

Now there is the good possibility of fraud within the program. The taxpayer will take another hit. The government can’t even run a simple recycling program without fouling it up. The government inefficiencies keep on coming, and our taxes keep going up.

Bob Dukat
Pahoa, Hawaii island

Private sector is key to Hawaii’s future

The post-Inouye era can be one of growth and prosperity for Hawaii only if our leaders respond correctly to the coming seismic shifts in federal funding for the many nonprofits, military programs andpublic works projects that the late U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye brought to Hawaii.

With federal funding sharply reduced as Hawaii’s junior congressional team is pushed to the budget sidelines, our prosperity will increasingly depend on expanding the private sector.

If our Democratic political and union leaders can quickly shift their decades-old focus on deficit spending and public-sector investment to actively favoring and facilitating private-sector growth, they will provide productive employment for the many skilled people displaced from the non-profit and public sectors and truly deserve their monopoly on political power in Hawaii.

If not, let’s give some Republicans a chance to help our keiki.

Mark Torreano
Waikiki

Driving infractions not being enforced

Has anyone else noticed the increasing number of cars and trucks being driven around with extremely loud booming music or with windows so tinted that even standing next to the vehicle and trying to look in, you could not see anything?

Unless I am badly informed, both of these actions are illegal — yet the police dolittle to nothing.

Imagine if each of these individuals with booming music or extremely dark window tint were pulled over and cited.They may go to court and try to fight it, or they may pay it.Either way, it’s pulling them into court, requiring them to take time off work or limit their leisure time, and pay a fine.

Driving through our housing areas or in high-rise areas just sends that booming music (if you can call it that) echoing through the buildings.We’ll never nip this growing problem unless the police start to enforce the law.

Clifton T. Johnson
Waikiki

U.S needs sensible regulations on guns

About a week after the killings of 20 schoolchildren by a young man with his mother’s rifle, the Star-Advertiser ran two — not one, but two — pro-gun commentaries, one above the other on the same page ("Grief doesn’t change reality about futility of guns," Jacob Sullum, Dec. 22; "Neither guns nor gun laws determine murder rates," Thomas Sowell, Dec. 22). Opinions not necessarily those of the paper, but perhaps obviously so. Then, about a week later, another commentary focusing on the mental health issue of the killings ("‘Mental illness’ is dubious standard for denying rights," Star-Advertiser, Jacob Sullum, Dec. 29).Oh, there was one short opinion from a Canadian paper that the Star-Advertiser did print, that remarked about the U.S. gun culture (World View, Dec. 23).

There’s no need for high-capacity magazines in the hands of the general public. Their danger clearly outweighs the imagined benefit they may bring their owners.

I don’t think the situation we have today was what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they indicated the need for "a well-regulated militia" in asserting our right to bear arms.

Let’s join the rest of the civilized world and pass some sensible gun-control laws.

Fred Smith
Kailua

Kudos to employees at satellite city hall

We often hear and read criticisms of governmental services, but we need to also commend those who do their jobs well.

On New Year’s Eve, I renewed my driver’s license at the Windward Satellite City Hall at the Temple Valley Shopping Center. The service was excellent. The manager came to speak to those waiting in line outside before the doors were opened for business. He clearly explained the procedures and went to each applicant and checked to ensure that they had all the documents necessary before proceeding to the processing counter. The personnel at the processing counter were polite, friendly and helpful.

What will happen when they include those applying for identification cards in the same lines beginning Jan. 2, I have no idea. If there are problems, it won’t be due to any fault of the manager or workers there. It will be the fault of those who came up with this idea and did not anticipate and resolve problems before they started.

Rudy Yap
Kaneohe