I’ve seen some pretty terrible things while working at the State Legislature, like votes being miscounted and representatives lying to the public. Too many of our leaders have forgotten who they represent. Our government isn’t functioning the way that I was taught it should. We should be able to rely on our leaders to put our needs above their own careers.

It’s time to revive, refresh and reinvent a government we can rely on. But the only way we’ll be successful is if we elect people who can bring new and better solutions to old problems and revive proven solutions that have been long forgotten by the people who currently hold office.

Issues

Lower Taxes
Better Jobs
Sustainability & Green Job Creation
Innovation in Education
Open, Honest Government

Lower Taxes – My stance on taxes is simple: no more money until we see better results.

There’s nothing new about wanting to lower taxes, but that’s because high taxes are a persistent and pervasive problem. Hawaii taxes the poor more heavily than most other states. The idea that we only tax the very rich simply isn’t true. Hawaii is also one of the top five highest-taxed states in the nation.

Some might argue that we have a lot to show for it. After all, we have great tourist attractions, the number one airline in the nation and Mililani is the recipient of the All-America City award. But these are all private successes that the government is not responsible for. The government is responsible for things like solving traffic problems and educating our kids in public schools. But most of us can agree that our government is failing at what it’s supposed to be doing.

Your tax dollars shouldn’t be treated like the government’s money, to be spent with reckless abandon. You should be able to expect responsible spending and positive results, rather than raised taxes when you get the opposite.

Better Jobs – The fact that Hawaii’s unemployment rate remains below the national rate is sometimes difficult to get excited about when the best and the brightest of our young people are leaving Hawaii for better jobs on the mainland. Yes, we still need to increase the quantity of jobs in Hawaii, but we also need to increase the quality.

Growing our economy and improving our job market starts with understanding what we’re good at and knowing what Hawaii has to offer. Today, as the world focuses in on Asia and Asian markets, we stand to benefit from our unique culture and strategic location. Hawaii is the ideal place for companies interested in exporting goods and services to Asia. However, we need to be more forward-thinking in the ways we attract these companies.

Just in the last year, the legislature voted numerous times to suspend tax credits for high-tech business investments after they were already promised. This kind of dishonorable and unreliable behavior, which would do considerable damage to the State’s credit rating, discourages rather than attracts the businesses that will keep our kids in Hawaii.

Budget and unemployment problems are not solved by laws that drive investors away and ruin the State’s reputation. We need people in government that understand that and will reach out to businesses and reach into the international markets to build stable and sustainable jobs for Hawaii.

Sustainability & Green Job Creation – Hawaii should be a leader in clean energy use and development. We have the ideal environment for developing clean energy technologies that would simultaneously decrease the cost of energy, reduce pollution, draw international business and bring better jobs to Hawaii. But we consistently fail to make any substantial progress in this area.

This year I participated in a series of meetings with government and business leaders from Hawaii and Indonesia where we discussed the various ways Hawaii could benefit from establishing trade relations with Southeast Asia. The possibility of exporting clean energy technology was a consistent topic of discussion. But Hawaii isn’t making enough progress with things like wave energy, which would be incredibly useful to a country like Indonesia. Again, we need more leaders who can think past what we’ve always done in order to be able to realize our full potential.

Innovation in Education – This year education was a big topic at the Legislature, but very little was done to improve it. Furloughs were a terrible thing that should never happen again, but simply funding the status quo education was not the answer either.

Hawaii has great teachers who don’t get paid enough and capable students who don’t get the tools they need to really excel. There’s too much wasted potential in our education system. And while there are a lot of areas to improve on, there are two things I would focus on immediately.

First, we need to audit the Department of Education and make sure we’re not wasting valuable funds that should be getting to the classroom. Second, I think that that more money should go to a “race to the top” program that would help fund innovative educational programs that prove successful.

One of my favorite classes at Georgetown was on the different learning styles of this upcoming generation of students and the various ways we could tailor educational programs to meet those changing needs. While there are a lot of good things in our schools, we also need to be open to innovative and creative learning strategies if our kids are going to be competitive nationally and internationally.

Open, Honest Government – This year, I worked on an interactive spreadsheet of the state budget, made available online so everyone could see the numbers the Legislature was working with. It was the first time this has been done in Hawaii.

Unfortunately, even as an employee acting on behalf of a representative, I had trouble getting honest answers about how much things cost. The cost or savings of every bill in the Legislature should be made easily accessible to the public because we deserve to know how much our government is spending and receiving.

I also believe that to create a more open and honest government, we need to put all votes on record and require adequate public notice on every bill up for a vote. In the 2010 session, I saw too many miscounted or unrecorded votes and last minute agenda changes — even a last-minute change to the number of votes needed pass a bill – to believe that the current rules are in the public’s best interest.

I also think we need to establish term limits for legislators to ensure that they are focused on their constituents and not their careers. Term limits would also help us keep a constant flow of new ideas in the capitol.