Is No Child Left Behind working? Evaluate it and its effect on Hawaii’s schools.
It helped by clarifying reading and math levels. Now we need creative funding. Money for mock hotel industry reservation centers in rural Hawaii communities for training and then job creation, money for at-risk students to learn construction trades by repairing state park bathrooms, fixing vacant public housing units, etc. These programs will teach them post-school trades for employment. And school-government cooperation saves taxpayer money.

We need money for computers and more teacher assistants in classrooms. We need creative and exciting programs for our youth. All of this is just a false promise if we do not get out of Iraq and reduce Congressional pork barrel “addiction”. We need to reduce the national debt (national “credit card”).

Finally, we need to stop complaining about our public school teachers. They have a heavy burden and work with many recent immigrant families and/or with families without a full appreciation of the need for education in this changing world. Let’s continue supporting these teachers and improve our public school system. It is OUR school system after all.

How concerned are you about the deficit and what measures do you believe must be taken to move us toward a balanced budget?

Saw two pregnant ladies recently, excitedly discussing their upcoming childbirths (about 3 months away). As I heard them talking about the new additions to their families and their hopes and dreams for their families, I realized that those two persons (yet to be) already owe thousands of dollars as their share of the national “credit card” debt. In fact their debt is now three trillion dollars larger than it was six years ago. Thanks to our “Family Values” Congress, those children have the burden of paying off this debt instead of using their earnings for their families.

Congress has turned America into a “debtor” Nation. Families in Hawaii have much more common sense that Congress when it comes to budgeting and financial matters. “Off the books” budget gimmicks, refusing to put the costs of the Iraq fiasco into the annual national budget, adding thousands of costly “pork barrel” gifts to Congressmen and women in unrelated appropriations bills represent the out of control spending damage that Congress continues to inflict on Hawaii’s residents and future generations.

We need common sense in Congress. Congress must change or be changed.

In balancing Americans’ right to privacy with the need for homeland security, how much personal information should the government be able to gather, what kind of information should it have access to and for what purpose?

We compromise our right to total privacy every day of our lives. These compromises are legitimate and necessary. State governments know when we were born, the names of our parents, etc. State governments know about our driving records and whether we need glasses to drive a vehicle. The federal government knows when and where we travel to foreign countries. The Social Security offices know the names of each employer where we have worked over our lifetimes and the amounts of money we made and the Internal Revenue Service knows how much we pay in taxes and what deductions we claim. And non-governmental groups know our credit records and sometimes our outstanding bills.

All of these compromises are necessary and cannot be avoided. Even more information may be needed in the future if the public insists on instantly knowing whether workers applying for jobs are “legal” or illegal” residents. Most likely a national identity card similar to a social security card would be necessary to show if any of us are legally allowed to work in America.

What we need in America is the following:

1. A healthy appreciation of the Constitutional rights that we possess. That document makes America special. Every Hawaii resident should read the Constitution and know your rights. Then demand that everybody, even powerful governmental officials live up to the promises of the Constitution.
2. A mature analysis of national problems and realistic steps to solve our security problems. Library cards don’t lead officials to terrorists. Mass round-ups of telephone records do not lead to terrorists. We need information gathering to be objective. Homeland security is vital but must be real and focused; not wildly scooping up millions of pieces of information that don’t lead to terror and that only remain unread in some office.
3. We need to demand that our President and our governmental officials follow the law, not break the law. There should be increased statutory penalties imposed upon government officials who inappropriately use any of our personal information for “political” purposes. Each time we sit quietly by and allow abuses to our rights we weaken and threaten our Constitution.
4. We need a Congress that loves the Constitution and is willing to restrain politicians who would weaken our Constitutional rights for purely political purposes during times of national homeland security crisis.