"Lei"zy Horses and Hot Malasadas

There are a number of annual events that make living in Hawai'i very enjoyable.  One I have already written about is the awe-inspiring Ironman Triathlon.  Several others are more celebrations of local culture and history that primarily involve residents, though visitors lucky enough to be here when they occur will also find them to be a unique treat.

One is the yearly parade in honor of King Kamehameha I, the Hawaiian monarch who unified the islands into one kingdom in the late 1700's and ushered in a period of unprecedented peace and prosperity.  Kamehameha was born on our island, and so there is a special local connection to this celebration, which is held state-wide each June. 

Pa'u Riders

The parade route is along part of Ali'i Drive, a waterfront street that passes through the quaint business area of Kailua-Kona.  The backdrop is the crystal clear blue Pacific 50-100 feet away and lining the route are palms, banyan trees, colorful bougainvillea, plumeria, orchids, and other assorted varieties of tropical greenery.  In the golden morning sunlight the scene is eye-poppingly beautiful.

Princess and Two Escorts

The special feature of the parade are eight groups of Pa'u horseback riders, each representing one of the main Hawaiian islands.  Each group consists of a princess and her attendants, plus several male outriders or escorts, all of them (including the horses) wearing the colors and flowers of the island they represent. The word Pa'u means "skirt" and refers back to the tradition started in the 1800's for women riders to wear long flowing skirts to protect their fancy clothing when they were riding to a party or celebration.  The flowers are incorporated into leis and hatbands and are appropriate to the island -- for our Hawai'i Island the riders wear red and the flowers are lehua blossoms woven into leis of maile and other ferns.  The horses wear leis, too, and usually bands of flowers in their harnesses.

Horses have been in Hawaii only for about 200 years.  They were introduced in 1803, when a mare and foal were brought by Richard Cleveland as a gift to King Kamehameha I.  Hawaiians had of course never seen such an animal -- the only mammals in the islands until humans arrived were the monk seal and an indigenous species of  bat.  The Hawaiians introduced dogs and pigs from Polynesia  (and maybe accidentally the palm rat), and in 1793 Captain George Vancouver presented King Kamehameha I with 5 black longhorn cattle. The cattle multiplied wildly, and in 1832 John Palmer Parker worked with King Kamehameha III to bring Mexican vaqueros with riding and roping skills to help with his booming cattle ranching business.  The vaqueros adapted well to Hawaii, where they were called paniolos (a Hawaiian interpretation of "espanol"), and introduced the cowboy culture here even before it was developed on the mainland U.S.  Of course here the cowboys do the hula instead of the two-step.  In the early 1900's Portuguese immigrants were recruited as ranch workers and they added their own cultural flavor to the mix, including the invention of the ukelele.

Poop Patrol

A parade with nearly a hundred horses is going to generate considerable fertilizer.  One of the cutest parts of the parade are the teams of pooper-scoopers that follow each of the Pa'u units.  They pull small wagons often decorated as colorfully as the Pa'u groups, and the scoopers do their job with a humorous flourish.  For example, this year the team following the riders representing Koho'olawe, a small island off the coast of Maui that was used for many years by the U.S. military as a bombing range, called themselves "The Bomb Squad,"  a double nod to the historic military reference and to the still-steaming missiles on the street. One of my favorites a few years back was a group whose highly decorated poop wagon had a large sign saying "Hot Malasadas!"  We residents in the crowd had to explain to visitors that malasadas are Portuguese doughnuts, a delicious favorite pastry found in bakeries all over the island.

For me the parade captures the character of Hawai'i very well:  A mix of Hawaiian, European, Asian, and Polynesian cultures displaying the complexity and diversity of influences on our history,  all in a physical setting that is hard to match.

Punishing the Victims?

[***Warning***  This blog contains material known to be toxic to the majority of members of the House of Representatives.]

Okay, let me get this straight.  The Republican/Tea Party's plan to solve the country's economic problems is to lower taxes for corporations and the wealthy while simultaneously cutting spending for social programs, such as Medicare, Transportation, Education and welfare assistance.  The conservative approach would also give corporations a boost by repealing an act that requires companies receiving federal contacts to pay workers at least at the level of prevailing local salaries and benefits.  This would allow those companies to pay workers less than they do now.  In short, we should increase the income of corporations and the wealthy but cut the income and benefits of middle and lower class workers.  Hooookay.

Doesn't this strategy put the burden for fixing the economy on the people who are suffering the most from the current recession?  That is, the ordinary people who are losing their houses, their jobs, and their health care?

The Republican/Tea Party argument is that the maximum marginal income tax rate (currently 35%) is the main obstacle to economic recovery and that cutting it would stimulate growth and reduce unemployment.  The wealthy would then have even more money to spend, which would trickle down to the less-wealthy, and corporations would have more funds to invest in expansion and hiring.   Sounds good, except there are some very large holes in this argument.

First, the current maximum tax rate is actually lower than it has been for most of the past 100 years, including periods when our economic situation has been far better than it is now.  There is simply no credible evidence that this rate is tied to economic growth.

Second, no one actually pays the highest rate.  Being a marginal tax bracket means that it applies only to income above a certain level, not to all the income of a person or corporation.  And it is levied only after all tax breaks and deductions have been applied, resulting in a much lower effective  tax rate.  For large corporations this is about 25% and for the wealthy about 18% on average.  For small businesses, according to the SBA, the effective range is from 13% to 27% depending on how they are structured.  And many corporations pay little or no tax at all. For example, in 2010 GE had a profit of  $5.1 billion and paid no Federal income tax, and is expected to have only a small tax bill again for 2011 (for an analysis of how they do this, see Forbes or Reuters). From 2008 to 2010 General Electric Co, American Electric Power Co Inc, DuPont Co and nine other companies had a negative 1.5 percent tax rate on $171 billion in profits according to a study reported by Reuters.

Third, a more direct way of linking tax rates to the nation's economic productivity is to calculate the percentage of taxes relative to the Gross National Product.  As economist Bruce Barlett notes in a recent NYT article:

By this measure, federal taxes are at their lowest level in more than 60 years. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that federal taxes would consume just 14.8 percent of G.D.P. this year. The last year in which revenues were lower was 1950, according to the Office of Management and Budget.The postwar annual average is about 18.5 percent of G.D.P. Revenues averaged 18.2 percent of G.D.P. during Ronald Reagan’s administration; the lowest percentage during that administration was 17.3 percent of G.D.P. in 1984. In short, by the broadest measure of the tax rate, the current level is unusually low and has been for some time. Revenues were 14.9 percent of G.D.P. in both 2009 and 2010.

I readily admit that sacrifice and budget cuts are necessary to get us out of the economic mess we are in.  But to me the burden has to shared by everyone,  rather than mostly by those who can least afford it.  To cut spending and increase revenue through taxes and/or closing tax loop holes on corporations and wealthy Americans isn't being unreasonably progressive -- it's just fair.