Bus fare
Bus fare
Missing the point on who’s paying
It was good that West Hawaii Today published the potential bus fare increase in the April 5 edition. However, it is of concern to read the statements made by Councilwoman Brenda Ford. She was against the $1 bus fare some now pay to ride the bus but failed to show concern over the $4.87 the rest of us dish out to supplement the cost of running the bus for each dollar collected.
While it does sound compassionate to offer others a free ride on the bus, the reality is that someone has to pay for the expenses involved. If her concern is that “too high a bus fare will dissuade riders from using the county transit service, resulting in more cars on the highways,” then it must be cheaper or more convenient to drive one’s own car to a destination than it is to catch the bus. This, in itself, implies that the rider is not catching the bus because of some financial need but because it is free, or almost free to the rider and the added expense to drive one’s own car is not a consideration.
It seems that in our world today, politicians are constantly looking for ways to accommodate a selective group of individuals without taking into consideration that the true cost still needs to be paid.
In this situation, the county is not the entity that makes the payment. It is us, the taxpayers, who foot the bill for the good deed offered by the politician. What happened to the old saying that “you get what you pay for?” Others prefer the saying: “Take all you can and can all you take.” What are we teaching the next generation?
Leningrad Elarionoff
Waimea
Health insurance
Drowning us all in more paperwork
So, if your employer is not going to provide you health insurance, and you have to get yours through the government, you should have a look at the draft questionnaire our genius bean-counters have come up with. It’s 61 pages long. They must have hired the same people that have designed our IRS tax forms. Most of us have to hire an expert to deal with those and now you will probably have to hire someone to fill these out, too.
In fact, the government knows you will have to do this and are expecting to hire thousands and thousands of interpreters. It’s how to take a good idea and screw it up.
I have had my own health insurance and never had to deal with anything this complicated. Ridiculous.
Dale Sarver
Holualoa