REIMBURSEMENTS

CONGRESS MUST ADJUST RATES FOR VOLUNTEERS

An old tax policy is hurting volunteers that help people in our community.

Every day, volunteers drive people with chronic illnesses to medical appointments, deliver meals to homebound individuals and help nonprofits keep their doors open, but a quirk in federal law is preventing many volunteers from helping the needy. As a result, nonprofits here and on the Mainland have been losing volunteers because of high gas prices and this unfair tax statute.

Congress allows the IRS to set the mileage rate that corporations and the federal government use to reimburse employees for miles they drive on business in their own vehicles. With skyrocketing gas prices, the IRS has increased that rate to 58.5 cents per mile. However, in 1997 when gas cost $1.25 per gallon, Congress locked in the deduction for volunteers at only 14 cents per mile.

To adjust that low rate, Congress must go back in and fix it. It will take an act of Congress for volunteers to get just compensation — until then, citizens depending on volunteer services will suffer.

The bipartisan Giving Incentives to Volunteers Everywhere Act of 2008, Senate Bill 3429, can fix it, but Congress will have just three weeks between its August recess and the fall election campaigns to do so.

The Hawai'i Alliance of Nonprofit Organizations, the National Council of Nonprofit Associations and hundreds of other nonprofits, such as AARP, American Red Cross, Catholic Charities USA, Independent Sector and United Way of America, urge Congress to pass the GIVE Act before adjourning for the November elections. Our volunteers and those they serve deserve it.

MAUNA KEA

EXPLORE POSSIBILITIES TELESCOPE COULD HOLD

There was just an article about the Thirty-Meter Telescope board evaluating Mauna Kea as a possible site. There is always controversy over development on the mountain — but what if, this time, we on the Big Island substantially benefited from it? What if we were able to use this opportunity to prepare ourselves, and our children, for the future?

What if the TMT coming here meant disadvantaged Hawaiians and other students can attend Hawai'i Community College and the University of Hawai'i at Hilo for free?

What if we develop a pathway for local people to fill jobs during the extensive construction and operating of the telescope?

What if we collect all the funds attributable to astronomy and have that money administered by a group of wise people who are chosen specifically to allocate it to the education of this island's keiki?

And what if these credible people fund education programs about the Hawaiian culture and Hawaiian language, and about traditional ways of sustainability, the sciences, job skills and other subjects that prepare our children for a new world where we, living on the island of Hawai'i, might have to survive on what exists here on our island?

And what if this organization exists far into the future and benefits many generations to come?

It would be the best of the future and the best of the past. What if?

GAS CAP

EFFECT OF GAS CAP WHEN OIL PRICE DIPS IS KEY

What a shame that some politicians trusted the oil companies' promise to make their financial reporting more transparent to revoke the gas cap.

How sad that some of us were deceived by the absurd counter-intuitive argument that somehow the gas cap was "driving up" the price of gas!

How unfortunate that we did not get to witness the effect of the gas cap in times when the price of oil was actually decreasing. Over the past month, while the price of a barrel of oil has dropped nearly 25 percent from $147 on July 11 to $111 on Aug. 15, the price of gas nationwide has fallen about 35 cents and more than 40 cents on the West Coast. What has been the effect on Hawai'i's gas prices without the gas cap? A paltry fall of about 5 cents over the same time period.

Please remember it has always been the Republican legislators — in particular the Lingle administration, beholden to the gas companies — who have always opposed the gas cap and assured us that we would be better off without it.

MARIJUANA

ENFORCEMENT WASTES TAXPAYERS' MONEY

I was pleased to read that the Big Island is going to vote on marijuana enforcement priorities. Most of the anti-marijuana laws are based on lies and faulty research. For example, if marijuana is addictive, then where are the bank robberies and stolen car rings attributable solely to marijuana addiction?

The government is wasting tax dollars "stamping out the marijuana" and the federal government wastes billions of tax dollars each year. Millions upon millions of Americans have used marijuana. Where are all the bad effects in the general population if marijuana is harmful?

The government in the nation's capital lies to us all the time; why should we believe them, waste our tax dollars, and put people in jail for puffing the weed?

RISING WATER

TIDE CHANGES NOT DUE TO GLOBAL WARMING

In response to David Ikegami (Letters, Aug. 19), the extreme high tides we experienced in early August were not due to global warming.

On Aug. 1 there was a total eclipse. Though it wasn't visible in Hawai'i, it did affect our tides. The eclipse on July 11, 2001, which we did enjoy, brought tides even higher than what we have recently experienced.

During and around the time of a solar eclipse, the moon and sun exert their pull on the ocean in almost the same direction. This enhanced pull causes very high (and low) tides.

Since the first of the month, as the sun and moon have been parting company, our tides have been returning to the highs and lows we are more familiar with. By next month things will be back to normal.

Please note my purpose is not to discredit global warming or changes in sea level.