Issue Position: Jobs and the Economy

Issue Position

As I have traveled throughout our islands meeting with Hawaii's residents, I have heard your frustrations with the slow economic recovery. We know that each day of indecision and inaction from our nation's Capitol means our families and businesses are one step further from benefitting from real, practical solutions. Our next Senator must have the experience and focus to break through the gridlock to address the challenges our businesses and workers face. Having guided Hawaii through the worst recession in state history, I understand the importance of reducing burdens on our work force and businesses to restore certainty and confidence in the economy.My top priority will be federal policies and initiatives that will encourage job creation in the short term and create a vibrant and growing economy in the longer term. I will work every day to ensure that the nearly 14 million Americans, including tens of thousands of Hawaii residents who are currently looking for work can find gainful employment.

If elected as your next U.S. Senator for Hawaii, I will put businesses and workers at the center of efforts to rejuvenate our economy, with government playing a key supporting and facilitating role. I will focus on sectors that I believe will generate the greatest number of jobs in the shortest possible time both in Hawaii and across the nation. This focus will include strong advocacy and support for expansion of the tourism industry, targeted and prioritized defense spending, an effective approach to energy security and self-sufficiency, and passing and enforcing international trade agreements.

Policies for Immediate Growth

In partnership with the private sector, government can spur job creation by instilling the certainty and confidence necessary for businesses to invest and to hire employees. Certainty and confidence will come from sound fiscal policies, relief from regulatory burdens and lawsuit costs, retention of a highly skilled work force and a fair and transparent tax system.

I am committed to restoring certainty and confidence by advocating for:

1. Tax Reform

We have a tax system that is not fair. our tax code contains more than 14,000 pages. It's not logical to expect average Americans and small businesses to understand and navigate this onerous law. Tax reform is essential because Americans have lost confidence in the way government treats individuals and businesses. Therefore, the solution is to bring down the tax rate to something more reasonable, while retaining the most important deductions such as the mortgage interest and charitable contributions. Through these reforms we will actually collect more revenue with a much broader tax base with everyone paying at a fair and similar rate.

2. Immigration Reform

I believe it's in America's best interest to develop a comprehensive legal immigration policy. If you're like me, your grandparents came from other countries, and they came for the same reasons people come today: to have a good life where their children can excel because there is equality of opportunity. Long-term economic growth demands that we attract the best and brightest from other countries. No more than 7% of the visas each year can be allocated to immigrants from any one country. Immigrants from large countries such as India and China have the same number of visas available as those from much smaller countries such as Iceland and Costa Rica. This makes no sense, is not in America's best interest, and should be changed.

3. Regulatory Reform

Over-reaching federal regulations and government red tape are stifling economic growth. The cost of complying with federal regulations falls disproportionately on small businesses, according to the Small Business Administration. My solution to avoid this problem is to require any new federal rule or regulation be accompanied by an objective jobs impact statement that would quantify what the negative effects is on jobs if we pass this rule. If we don't know the impact on job creation and the economy in general, how can we move forward? Therefore, regulatory reform will be very important to economic growth in the future.

4. Lawsuit Reform

America is the only western industrialized country where, within certain limited exceptions, you can sue someone, and if you lose you do not have to pay the other side's costs. This is critically important to us to fix because lawsuits can be filed against a project or development with little or no downside, and because of the overburdened judiciary, these strategic lawsuits can take years to resolve. Since there is no deterrent to filing these frivolous claims, any one individual can stop a project that could benefit an entire community. The prospect of paying for your opponent's legal fees, if you lose, will deter these lawsuits, and allow for these beneficial projects to go forward.

If elected as your next U.S. Senator, I believe implementing these sound economic initiatives will create immediate positive change in our economy. In this way, we can restore the confidence and certainty in our economy that our workforce and businesses desperately need to grow our way out of the economic downturn.

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