Misc. Ramblings

One of the planks in our new governor's platform is one of restoring trust in government. She is proposing various ways of doing this but I don't think her actions backup her words.

For example, she wants to add staff to her office but realizes it would not be politically correct to do this in our fragile economy. So, she wants private industry to pay for them - either directly, as in giving her money or indirectly by providing some of their staff to work in her office.

This idea is fraught with conflict of interest problems. Say an oil company, decides to send one of their top administrators to work in the governor's office. One could say this person would bring a wealth of practical experience to the job. While this might be true, one has to wonder what kind of influence this person would have on policies such as regulating certain companies. Oil ones, for example. Especially since the last administration was in the midst of filing a law suit alleging evasion of billions in federal taxes and hundreds of millions in state taxes on the part of one oil company.

If you think she wouldn't hire someone like this, think about how she hired her then husband to represent her as mayor of Mau'i. Whether this was legal or not (it was not), it shows either a complete lack of understanding of the ethical issues this raises or a reckless disregard of said issues.

In these situations, there would always be at least the appearance of undue influence. That is, who does this person really work for? The oil company that pays his or her salary? The citizens of this state, over which this person has control of policy? The governor who is also his wife?

A second example is one of telling the truth. In her State of the State speech last week, the governor alleged that Hawai'i's workers compensation law was so unbalanced that someone fired for stealing could receive such compensation due to the stress caused by being fired. Only, it wasn't true. It did not happen and could not happen under the current law.

The spreading of an untrue urban myth is not trust inducing. It makes one wonder what else she believes to be true, but isn't. Does she believe the welfare system is the major cause of the high number of single-parent households among Blacks (see this study here that indicates this pattern existed a century before the welfare system was created). Does she believe the urban myths that are trotted out every time someone wants to institute tort "reform" (see a list here)?

We want and deserve better.