Everyone knows the rail tax surcharge will be approved as a permanent tax.

Yet, our politicians want us to believe they are really weighing all of the surcharge’s ramifications and spew all the feigned concerns about making the tax permanent.

They pretend to be horrified by the prospect of a permanent tax and speak eloquently about fiscal responsibility on the city level.

They should cut the bovine droppings and be honest with the people of Oahu. Admit this isn’t even an issue at the Legislature. Two things our Legislature is really good at are taxes and spending. They’re going to keep the train tax and find new ways to tax even more things.

When they are running for re-election, they can be proud of the taxes they’ve kept and raised, telling us there are more on the horizon because the state of Hawaii is running out of money.

Mark Middleton

Aiea

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Rich should pay for needed services

Taxing the working and middle class is immoral. All new taxes should be borne by the rich.

All that needs to be done is to tax incomes, inheritances and non-resident sales of houses over $1 million at 50 percent.

William Sink

Downtown Honolulu

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Find a better way to raise revenues

Do the governor, Legislature, mayor and City Council members understand what putting people first means?

Voters did not elect them to raise taxes and fees on a continuous basis to fund failed systems due to mismanagement. The best example is rail. It is obvious they cannot run the city, county and state without additional taxes and fees.

They burden the middle and lower class, who struggle every day to maintain their homes and feed their families. Many are one step away from being homeless.

We can no longer trust campaign promises. Politicians need to be held accountable. They keep promising, but they do not deliver. If money is needed to fund rail and all the infrastructure problems that exist, then maybe it is time for a lottery or some other way of funding these projects that will make sense, rather than taxing and feeing the people of Hawaii to death.

Dora S. Johnson

McCully-Moiliili

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Universal care would improve U.S. health

An article in the Star-Advertiser reported that the United States has “one of the lowest life expectancies of any developed country” (“Global life expectancy study gives America a low ranking,” Feb. 22).

Research revealed that Monaco has the highest life expectancy at 89.62 years and the United States is ranked at 48th with its life expectancy at 77.85 years. Surely, the world’s richest country can move up to No. 1, if President Donald Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress implemented a true universal health care program.

Roy S. Tanouye

Waipahu

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Republican voters will face the music

Members of Congress like U.S. Sens. Mitch McConnell, Joni Ernst, Chuck Grassley and Pat Toomey, and U.S. Reps. Jason Chaffetz, Marsha Blackburn and Tom McClintock, have recently been met with worried and angry constituents at town halls in their own districts.

Much worry revolves around people’s fear of losing their health care insurance.

It isn’t only the Democrats who will suffer from the repeal of the Affordable Care Act. Did the Republicans in Congress think their own constituents would give them a pass on having their health care insurance yanked out from under them just so they could make political points against Democrats?

Now Donald Trump voters in Republican states are beginning to see the unintended consequences of voting in a Manchurian candidate for the Republican Congress, which now is moving to have its right-wing agenda enacted, including: cutting, privatizing and/or eliminating Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, the U.S. Postal Service and Amtrak.

William E. Conti

Waikiki

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Young should care about kupuna care

I am a student at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. I attended the Kupuna Care Assistance Rally on Feb. 7 that made front-page news (“Isle caregivers relate financial, health pain in calling on state for aid,” Star-Advertiser, Feb. 8).

I was surprised to see that the majority of those who attended the rally were above the age of 50. My classmates and I were among the youngest ones there, ranging from 18 to early 20s.

I felt like more people of my age should have attended this rally because we need to start now while we are young to prepare for kupuna care, not wait until it is too late.

As a millennial, I am raising this point because a lady close to my heart, born in the baby- boomer generation, raised me when my parents couldn’t. Soon, she will need the kind of caregiving support the Legislature is considering. I hope they will support the Kupuna Care Assistance Bill.

Samantha Calumpit

Waikele