Colleen Hanabusa, one of the Democrats running for the House in Hawaii’s special election, has a television ad up, pledging to create jobs. Of course, in May of last year, as the recession raged and Hawaii’s unemployment rate was double what it had been a year earlier, Hanabusa voted to increase the state income tax from a top rate of 8.25 percent to 11 percent, and she voted to permit Hawaii’s counties to impose a sales tax on property. And she began the year by arguing that canceling a 36 percent pay raise for state legislators was “unfair and unconstitutional.”
I don’t know about Hawaiians, but pledges to create jobs from folks who hike taxes in a recession make me volcanically angry.
Republican Charles Djou – who has a much better-than-usual shot in a three-way race — debuted his first television ad last week.