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Hawaii's welfare system and the government's broader role in supporting people in need formed the subject of this 1996 debate. Richard Port, chairman of the Democratic Party of Hawaii, argued that the central problem was not welfare recipients but an economy in which wealth had become increasingly concentrated and jobs increasingly poorly paid; he held that society had a moral obligation not to leave people homeless or children underfed. Cliff Slater, a Honolulu businessman, cited a Cato Institute study estimating Hawaii's combined welfare package at around thirty-six thousand dollars in equivalent pre-tax income, placing the state among the highest in the nation, and argued that the financial incentives created by the current system discouraged marriage, employment, and self-sufficiency. Both guests agreed that able-bodied people should work and that corporate welfare deserved equal criticism. Mike McCartney, Vice President of the Hawaii state Senate, joined the programme by telephone and reported that a recent Democratic caucus had itself debated whether welfare incentives were undermining independence. Whether Hawaii's benefit levels and eligibility conditions should be reformed, and on what terms, is the question the programme left open.
Transcript
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Companion newspaper commentaries
Commentaries by the guests, published in The Honolulu Advertiser around the broadcast.
