Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now
The Hawaii government's favorite Starship song
“Ooh, all that I need is you …”
… to pay us more!
How romantic (emphasis mine):
If you were thinking Hawaiʻi lawmakers would take note of public opposition to hefty pay raises for themselves and other state officials and turn them down, think again.
Legislative leaders on Tuesday made clear they will not bring the recommendations of the Hawaiʻi Salary Commission up for a vote this year. And no vote means the raises are going through unchallenged. And they’re good for the next six years.
The state Salary Commission last month recommended a package of raises that range from 35% to 48% over six years for the Legislature, state judges, the governor and lieutenant governor, and state department heads and their deputies.
Under the language in the state Constitution that created the commission, most of those raises automatically take effect starting July 1 unless a majority of lawmakers vote to reject them during the current legislative session.
But nope. Not happening.
As always, Hipsta Pravda commenters add context and details omitted from the main story (emphasis mine):
This sounds like a replay of the 64% salary increase for city councilmembers two years ago. It seems to be too difficult to be reasonable with respect to increases like this.
These raises are manini [small] compared to the hefty pay raises the Maui County Salary Commission gave. Maui's managing director Josiah Nishita's annual compensation will be $325,104, which is an increase by $152K or 89% [and is higher than the governor’s salary]. Deputy Managing director will make $292K, which is still way more than Gov. Green's salary at $217K.
How can there be such a huge difference in raises given between the state salary commission and Maui County's salary commission?
I don’t know the situation on Maui (I’ve only been there twice), but I have my doubts that this stand taken by the perpetual Republican minority in the state legislature will amount to anything:
House Minority Leader Diamond Garcia joined other House Republicans in introducing a resolution to reject the raises, and Republican Sens. Brenton Awa and Samantha DeCorte did the same in the Senate.
Hawaii is a one-party state. The politicians who let themselves get raises will be reelected, regardless of the protests in the comments at Hipsta Pravda, an online paper with a small readership. Regular Pravda with a much larger readership hasn’t covered this story since a month ago. And “much larger” is only about 83,000 as of 2023 - 6% of the population. Some of that 6% doesn’t necessarily read the hard news or even bother to pick the paper up from their driveway.
The average person in Hawaii is a Pidgin speaker who reads very little in English. The average person has no idea ‘their’ representatives are enriching themselves. The average person will vote for them again in 2026 … and 2028 … and ...
Kinda strange how some people always seem to get raises while the rest of us are getting Paradise Taxed to oblivion. It makes me wonder if they think of us less as citizens and more as livestock.
Moooo. We are loyal livestock.
Palaka_Power is super loyal:
I'm in the minority here, but I think our elected officials should be paid more.
Like me, Kilika expects our lea-duh-ship to keep their comfy positions:
Ask yourself why these politicians have no fear of retaliation or loss of employment and you get closer to the heart of Hawaii’s politics.
That increased comfort will come at a price according to BigIslandMan:
Here's a prediction. Next session one of the rationales for the new and larger taxes that will be proposed, will be the need to cover these significant salary increases....
WhatMeWorry knows who we are:
Banana republic state run by a bunch of amateurish, "essentially" (but not really) full timers.
How many are life timers?
We The People of this Banana republic are used to being ignored and having our faces slapped by arrogant buffoons with a corruption perception problem. You could say we're sorta gluttons for punishment in a toxic relationship.
One that will remain blue. Which doesn’t mean Woke. Hawaii is nonideological. Ideology is the toy of the affluent and the ‘educated’. Ukraine and Palestine and Native Hawaiian issues aside, our lea-duh-s don’t virtue signal much. They are more interested in money. As is our Great Orange God in DC:
And it’s not just Trump’s gang that’s cashing in. In that article,
wrote,I’m still unclear on whether government secrets constitute the kind of “insider information” that constitutes a crime - after all everyone in Congress from Nancy Pelosi on down to Marjorie Taylor Greene seems to be a shockingly good stock picker.
Our legislature 4,800 miles (7,800 km) away doesn’t even have to bother to pick stocks to get rich. They can pick our pockets without impunity.