Ethics

In the pre-general reports filed yesterday, Djou reported $226,000 to Hanabusa’s $112,000 in the first two weeks of October. Djou outraised her by more than $50,000 in September.

According to the non-partisan Tax Foundation, the tax burden for the average working family in Hawaii’s First Congressional District where Charles Djou lives would be $1,784 higher if tax rates are allowed to increase at the close of this year—if Congress does nothing, as it is currently poised to do.

Washington – Colleen Hanabusa's Washington friends already opened up the nation’s pocketbook once to bailout Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – the catalyst of the mortgage crisis – and now the mortgage giants may need anywhere from $73 to $215 billion in additional handouts just to keep afloat. The Democrats’ failure to reform and restructure the two companies is now going to cost taxpayers more money, further contributing the nation’s economic woes and signifying the spending problem that has become a signature of the out-of-touch majority.

Hawaii's first congressional district, former home to President Barack Obama, longtime Democratic district, but the GOP has a great shot at keeping this seat. Why? Well – a couple reasons: foremost being that this year seems to be the year where the impossible becomes possible in Hawaii politics: a Republican, Charles Djou, won the special election for former Democratic Rep. Neil Abercrombie's seat and now, when Democrat Colleen Hanabusa is trying to take it back, Djou is well-positioned to keep the seat.

The U.S. Treasury has needed to borrow money to pay Social Security benefits in 15 out of the last 25 months on record because the Social Security system was in deficit in those months, with the cost of monthly benefit payments exceeding the Social Security tax revenues flowing into the Old Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance trust funds, according to data published by the Social Security Administration.

“After evaluating the candidates in this race, we believe that Cam Cavasso will best serve the interests of hardworking Hawaii taxpayers by advocating the principles of lower taxes, less government and more individual freedom.”

"I congratulate my opponent on receiving this endorsement from our president; however, it does not change the fact that he would stall our progress on clean energy and hold us back from cutting by more than half our dependence on foreign fossil fuel by 2018, grow government at the expense of small businesses, and waffle on critical public education reforms." 

Remember this is the same President who admonished "small towns in Pennsylvania" and "a lot of small towns in the Midwest" because they "get bitter" and "cling to guns or religion." And the President is not alone. MSNBC's new "Lean Forward" Progressive Movement branding campaign also leaves out "by their Creator" from their reading of the Declaration. Again, this is no accident. Writing faith in God out of the public sphere allows and encourages Big Government to replace it.

Two weeks ago the Hill released a poll in which Djou led his once and current opponent, Hanabusa, 45 to 41 percent — within a margin of error of 4.9 percent. The poll also found 61 percent of respondents had a favorable opinion of the congressman, while 56 percent did of his adversary. Fortune, it seems, is smiling on Djou.

AFBI’s President Dick Patten praised Willoughby for signing the pledge, saying “By supporting estate tax repeal, Willoughby will help save local jobs and businesses.”

A recent study from the American Family Business Foundation found that repealing the Death Tax would increase nationwide employment by 1.5 million jobs.  In Hawaii alone, repealing the Death Tax would add over 7,000 new jobs.

Hanabusa believes that more government is the answer to every problem, even though the massive stimulus and government expansion into virtually every sector of our economy have failed.

"As if the lies from mainland special interests weren't enough, the local establishment has launched a smear campaign of its own. The group, called 'Working Family for Hawaii,' is really the Hawaii Government Employees Union, which is apparently too ashamed of its false ads to run them under its own name."

HONOLULU-- In her recent ad, Colleen Hanabusa boasts that she would have voted for the $26 billion state bailout bill that put Hawaii taxpayers on the hook for bailing out fiscally irresponsible state and municipal governments.

During the administration of President Bill Clinton, conservatives successfully reformed one welfare program in the 1990s: replacing the old Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) with the new Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF). But President Barack Obama's failed economic stimulus gutted those reforms. And his budget proposal would spend $10.3 trillion on means-tested welfare over the next decade. Before the current rise in poverty, that was enough to give $250,000 to each person currently living in poverty in the U.S., or $1 million for a poor family of four. Our nation can’t afford another 10 years of failed War on Poverty thinking.

It took from 1776, when the United States became an independent country, until 1990, the year after the Berlin Wall fell signaling victory in the Cold War, for the federal government to accumulate a total of $3 trillion in debt, according to the Treasury Department. It only took from Jan. 20, 2009, the day President Barack Obama was inaugurated, until Oct. 15, 2010, for the Obama administration to add $3 trillion to the federal debt.

We couldn’t help but notice Obama's reference to the “Small Business Credit Card Act”—HR 3457 .  The bill was introduced in Congress by then-Rep Abercrombie on July 31, 2009.  But even with a Democrat-controlled House and Senate, and Dan Inouye’s seniority, Abercrombie’s bill has gone exactly nowhere. 

“Inouye backed Colleen Hanabusa in May’s special election for Hawaii’s first congressional district.  She came in second place and is still defying political analysts who believed the seat was a safe Democrat seat by polling behind Republican Charles Djou in recent polls.  Inouye also backed Mufi Hannemann for governor and Kirk Caldwell for mayor, both of whom lost their election."

Honolulu, Hawaii—An impressive 49 candidates from Hawaii in the November 2^nd election have have signed the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, promising to “oppose and vote against any and all efforts to increase taxes.”

It wouldn’t be an election without an October surprise, and sure enough, the 2010 cycle will not disappoint.  This time, it’s not some 11th hour accusation about unpaid taxes, illegal nannies or secret love affairs, but an appearance from the Mad Hatter of pollsters whose crazy talk in the final days of the election is making black sound like white and and Nancy Pelosi sound…sane. Well, almost.

Who is the Mad Hatter of the 2010 elections?  Friends, follow me on a trip down the rabbit hole…

From Cam Cavasso Campaign: Just two weeks ago, we sent you our roadmap to victory, analyzing the latest polling in the Hawaii Senate Race. At the time, our opponent, Dan Inouye, held a 36-point lead in the polls.  But in the latest poll released yesterday by Rasmussen Reports, Cam is closing the gap, narrowing Inouye's lead to just 13 percent!  The poll is also revealing because it shows several trends:

He voted against adopting the recommendations of the bipartisan 9/11 Commission, which worked for nearly two years to provide an accurate description of the September 11 attacks and identify the problems that led to the success of the attack.  

Cam Cavasso focuses on addressing the chronic deficits faced by the U.S. Government by addressing Washington’s out-of-control spending and developing a fairer, simpler tax code that avoids the revenue volatility of the current income tax structure.

In 2004 Inouye won with 75% of the vote so this is quite a come down and a very good sign for Hawaii Republican candidates up and down the ballot.

This is the first American Crossroads independent expenditure campaign ad.

"Tonight she was unable to articulate anything the Congress had done in the past year that she would have voted against, she was unable to describe how she would encourage job creation and she continued to tout the success of the so-called 'stimulus' bill which has failed by the very standard its proponents set. The people of Hawaii deserve independent, fiscally responsible leadership, not a rubber stamp."

Hawaii CD2 Congressional Candidate featured on Dennis Praeger show.

UK Daily Mail, National Journal, Atlanta Journal Constitution, MSNBC First Read, Washington Examiner, The Hill, Daily KOS . . . .   

“These are naive idiots who’ve come out of academia and have never done anything real in their lives, and they are actually in power,” he said. “These are the people we never let in the room when we had serious business to do. Now they’re running the country.”

On October 23, 2009, a reporter asked Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA): "Madam Speaker, where specifically does the Constitution grant Congress the authority to enact an individual health insurance mandate?" Speaker Pelosi shook her head dismissing the question: "Are you serious? Are you serious?" Pressed for a more substantive response later, Pelosi's press spokesman admonished the reporter: "You can put this on the record. That is not a serious question. That is not a serious question."

Yesterday, Roger Vinson, senior federal judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida, found it to be a very serious question indeed.

Citizens Against Government Waste named him “Porker of the Month” in August of 2009 for his constant reach into pockets of hard working Americans to fund useless, ineffective and sometimes even radical programs and ideas.” 

Worst of all, Abercrombie has consistently provided large taxpayer funded contracts to his friends in companies like Pacific Biodiesel, which also donate to Abercrombie’s campaigns.  

The Taxpayer’s Perspective highlights two ballot measures in Hawaii, including a statewide measure that would give the legislature discretion to use property tax rebates intended for taxpayers and a local measure in Oahu that would create a transit authority to oversee a rail project.

"I do not believe the future of our economy is going to come from a bureaucrat," Djou said. "The future of our economy is going to come from an individual, an individual American who takes a chance, goes into the marketplace and creates a job."

Wall Street Journal, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Hill

The Democratic Governors Association is fighting back with a new ad framing a vote for Mr. Aiona as a vote against President Obama. The ad quotes Mr. Aiona himself saying electing a GOP governor would be a "knock-out punch" against Hawaii's favorite son in the White House.

However, this may not be a risk-free strategy for Democrats. The Republican Governors Association has its own ad up that gently chides Mr. Abercrombie for being out-of-touch with the state. The ad doesn't clobber Mr. Obama, but says: "Maybe people in Washington don't care how you handle the federal budget -- by printing money, raising taxes, and increasing the deficit -- but in Hawaii, we do care."

In her own words, Colleen Hanabusa said in one of her recent advertisements that she is the kind of politician that, “What you see is what you’ll get.” Since she asked for it, let’s take a look at her record…

At one time, social obligations and services were carried out by community groups, family networks and even local governments. Now, an ever growing and ever more unaccountable federal bureaucracy undermines our spirit of self-reliance and self-improvement by making more and more Americans dependent on Big Government. In 2010, we witnessed a record-breaking surge in American dependence on the federal government including....

Myth: The U.S. Chamber is spending foreign money on political activities.

Fact: The U.S. Chamber fully complies with all applicable laws and regulations. No foreign money is used to fund political activities.

Attacks by the White House and the Democratic National Committee on outside groups like Crossroads and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Collegio said, have helped energize their base and bring in more donations.

The first eight races in which Crossroads will run ads include two for incumbents — Dan Lungren in  California’s Third Congressional District and Charles Djou in Hawaii’s First Congressional District.

In 2003, Hawaii passed Act 73, which took past and future title to accretions (the slow build-up of sediment on beaches) from landowners and gave it to the State, changing a 120-year-old rule. While waterlines are unpredictable, the original rule — common to most waterfront jurisdictions — helped establish legal consistency. Indeed, without such a rule, beachfront property becomes beachview property in just a few years.

Hawaii Rep. Charles Djou may be getting the biggest prize: Boehner said Djou will get a seat on the Appropriations Committee if he wins re-election next month after winning the special election in May to replace Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D). Hawaii Sen. Daniel Inouye (D) chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, so the appointment would give the island state an outsized influence on Appropriations.

Neil Abercrombie says that people in Hawaii “are not interested in how politicians will balance the budget." 

New numbers out Wednesday from The Hill's midterm poll give Djou a four-point lead over Democrat Colleen Hanabusa, despite an Obama endorsement for the Democratic nominee. Djou leads 45 percent to 41, with 12 percent of likely voters undecided. 

The poll, conducted for The Hill by Penn Schoen Berland, surveyed 406 likely voters and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.

To make matters even worse for Democrat candidates like Hanabusa, President Obama recently admitted in an interview that he realized too late that “there’s no such thing as shovel-ready projects,” confirming once and for all that the stimulus was a policy disaster. After leaving small businesses and hard-working families to suffer from Washington’s egregious miscalculations – how can Hanabusa possibly defend the failed trillion-dollar stimulus now?

MYTH: Our opponent said that the failure of Congress to pass the Akaka Bill was the fault of Republican Senators.

FACT: Our opponent didn't explain the fact that the 2009-10 Democrat Senate - part of the time with a super majority - has not only failed to pass the Akaka Bill, but has also failed to even bring it to the floor for a vote.

Never has there been a more gross example of the nation's heritage being mismanaged than at the Ewa Field battlefield, where US Marines died in defense of their country on a December 7 Sunday morning, where Navy Region Hawaii allowed this hallowed ground to became a totally forgotten GARBAGE DUMP - until Save Ewa Field brought this gross mismanagement to local and national attention.

The April 26 Denver Post agrees:

Exhibiting quite a lot of gall, General Motors is trying to spin the public with an ad campaign launched last week based on breathtakingly misleading information.