Lingle is Dismantling the Social Programs

• Lingle has withheld funds for social programs for our 'opio. The gang problem had declined due to funding of alternative activities for our young people. But now, with Lingle's priorities turning to handouts for her big business friends, funding for these programs has been withheld and increased gang activity has resulted.



• Lingle has withheld funds to fix dangerous conditions in public housing.
  
  
• Lingle withheld funds for dam inspections resulting in 9 deaths on Kaua'i.
  
  
• Lingle has withheld funds for Maui roads leaving the residents of Kipuhulu cut off for more than a year after the earthquake that damaged their road.
  
  
• Lingle has withheld funds for more than a decade to fix the Pali road on Maui which several times a year is closed due to fires and deaths, resulting in hundreds of thousands of tourists being stranded in Lahaina, unable to make their airplane flights. (Not to mention all the commuters who are unable to get home.)
  
  
• Lingle has ignored problems with neighbor island harbors which are the lifeline bringing almost all the goods to the islands. Kawaihae on the Big Island is crumbling. Kahului is the only harbor on Maui and exceeded its maximum carrying ability in 2003. Despite that Lingle gave preference to her GOP business friends, Superferry and NCL, taking even more space away from vital interisland freight. Now, the coal barge waits 4 days outside the harbor while cruise ships tie up, using our docks as free ocean front hotel land.
  
  
• Community College on the Big Island - Students study in converted supermarket while Lingle withholds $7million in design funds for the West Hawai'i Campus Buildings.
  
  
• Lingle Withholds Funds to Fix 55 Schools
  
  
• Lingle Withholds Funds for Schools and yet admits they are in bad shape
  
  
• Lingle withholds $344 million for repair and maintenance and capital improvement projects
  
  
• Lingle withholds $500,000 that was to go to Kupuna Care 
  
  
• By withholding the money, the governor caused real suffering and pain to a large number of people 
  
  
• Lingle has withheld money from badly needed social services
  
  
• Lingle has refused to release money for pedestrian safety that the Legislature has apportioned.
  
  
• The AARP remains critical of Gov. Linda Lingle's decision not to release money under a bill granting $3 million from the state Highway Fund for pedestrian-safety measures.  
  
  
• Through her hand-picked DCCA, Lingle attempted to destroy Hawai'i public television and took away 2/3rds of its funds.
  
  

It is not clear whether she is withholding funds because she personally doesn't like the programs the Legislature approved or because she is part of the Bush-Cheney neocon group which seeks to eliminate all social programs or because she wants to make herself look like a successful governor running a surplus.

In any event, it is the people of Hawai'i who are paying the price for her political ambition.