Doug: I agree that there is not enough money to go around. What are your top three funding priorities, and explain why you feel Hawai'i needs these programs?

Rep. Marcus Oshiro: For me, No. 1 would be health. No. 2 would be human services, especially for those who are really struggling. Third, education — public education, both lower education and higher education.

Kathy: I feel government has simply grown too big here in Hawai'i. Why not scale it back significantly and focus on efficiency?

Rep. Marcus Oshiro: We can be more effective, more efficient. Right now we have Don Horner leading the charge on the reinventing government task force, and he's doing a great job. His goal is to come forward in another month or so with several proposals where we can be more effective or more efficient with limited dollars, less personnel and maybe tapping into technology to have the same or better quality of service delivery at better cost.

Jeanne Mariani-Belding: Do you anticipate further job reductions as we become more efficient?

Rep. Marcus Oshiro: I think so. I think there's a way of using technology and different systems today to maybe cut back on the number of personnel we have and that way maybe we can pay them a little bit more and get better services — more bang for our buck.

Jason: Please explain how in the world legislators can justify a 36 percent pay raise this year, yet ask everyone else to make sacrifices? Will you commit here today to repealing that pay raise?

Rep. Marcus Oshiro: I can't do that. The Legislature did take a step last session, taking a 5 percent pay cut, this was before the furloughs, before the layoffs, before the restrictions, before the reductions. The Legislature took a 5 percent pay cut, the governor took a 5 percent pay cut, the lieutenant governor took a 5 percent pay cut, all directors took a 5 percent pay cut, the deputy directors took a 5 percent pay cut, and all state court judges took a 5 percent pay cut.

I believe, though, that we will go back into the 2010 session and really look at whether or not we can go and take further pay cuts along the lines of other public employees.

On a personal note, I'll let you know that I understand your concern and how you're feeling about it. My wife is a public worker; she's a District Court clerk. And as a member of HGEA Unit 3, she's undergoing 17 days of furlough this year and 24 days of furlough next year. So, it's impacting me in my own household.

Deb Y.: What are the plans around renewable energy in Hawai'i?

Rep. Marcus Oshiro: We have been doing much over the past several years, led by Rep. Hermina Morita and Sen. (Kalani) English, to promote renewable energies in Hawai'i. We've stepped up as far as our requirements for getting us off of fossil fuels, oil based fuels.

We're looking at promoting renewable energy like wind, solar, photovoltaic, geothermal, wave energy, all the different types of fuel. Also looking at growing our own fuel, whether it's algae or some other type of biocrop.

Hawai'i has the greatest potential, I think, of all states to really get ourselves weaned off fossil fuels. We can't do it entirely, that's true. I think we need to understand that. We need to have a firm power base of some electricity generation. But we can move a lot faster, we can move a lot better than most other states because we have all the resources here. I'm excited about the transoceanic cable that may link up O'ahu with Maui, Maui with Moloka'i, O'ahu and maybe one day the Big Island, where you have a lot of geothermal energy. A lot of opportunity to maybe ship energy between islands.

Mike from Hawai'i Kai: Will you and your committee consider that raising the GET and perhaps other taxes for three years while departments and services are orderly wound down may actually be less costly and disruptive to our economy than these across-the-board, often illogical, cuts?

Rep. Marcus Oshiro: Last year we passed these tax proposals, we made it until 2015. We took it out for the six-year financial plan if we are looking for any kind of tax increases, we'll take it out over six years in 2015. Or maybe three years like you suggest.

But you're absolutely right, we need to take it out for a certain period of time — for a time certain — and to have it sunset, and for people to understand where this money is going to go to. And like I've shared with other people, we have a $1 billion shortfall. Unless we are going to go cut services, cut programs, we are going to have to find revenues to pay for those services that we, all of us in the community, want.