 Okay, we're back. We're live to 10 o'clock clock with talking tax with Tom Yamachika and indeed it seems quite Appropriate that we have Tom with us Tom Yamachika on talking tax with Tom. Hi Tom Hey, Jay. Thank you for having me on the show Absolutely, so let's talk about what's going on here, you know We've had earlier discussions about the cares money and the money from Washington and whether the legislature and the governor We're doing the right thing with it But some of it really hasn't even been accounted for can you talk about that? well And and it's interesting because the federal money Is coming from no more than one source. I mean, there's there's more than one bill that makes it available We talked last time In great detail about the cares act money in which 1.25 billion dollars was going to be made available for the state and The proviso of course that that the money had to be spent or used by year's end now You may remember that after the cares act went into effect. There was a subsequent act Called the paycheck protection program and health care enhancement act and what that did among other things Was it increased the duration of the the payment protection act reimbursable period from like Six weeks to Until the end of the year, I mean until until July 31st of the end of this year As part of that effort Our senators worked hard and our representatives worked hard for and got within that bill an additional 50 million dollars Part of which was going to go Or and all that we supposed to go to Necessary expenses to developer scale up COVID-19 testing conduct surveillance trace contacts and other pandemic related activities Okay That's the state of Hawaii was getting 50 million dollars for those purposes. It was and and this was not lost in our legislature We talked last time about the bill that divvied up the Part of the 1.25 billion It was it was another bill said bill 75, which was actually passed a little bit earlier That told us what we're going to do with the with the 50 million and it said that 36 million was going to go to the Department of Transportation for thermal screening and related uses and 14 million was supposed to go to the Department of Health for outbreak control contract tracing and PPE Okay, so We now have 14 million and this bill was signed into law. Okay, so So we have this money going to Department of Health and It said That both agencies were supposed to submit a monthly report to the legislature and governor that details all Allocations and expenditures the same, you know similar language to the to the other appropriation bill that possible to 1.25 billion Okay now What happens is what happened to the 14? Which we're trying to figure that out What about the 36 million I went to the Department of Trans in fact go there Well, we know that stuff Appropriation went there. We know that they with the put in thermal screening equipment. That was in the news So at least they did something they did something with and let me Take a digression. I'm sorry to interrupt But I'm 36 million for the airport and 14 million for all the people in the state It doesn't seem like the right allocation. That's but that's just my intuitive reaction Well, I mean there was supposedly other Millions of dollars that were being parceled out as well from the 1.25 billion. I mean the The Department of Transportation was supposed to get I know I think a hundred million and that got cut down to 70 But they still got a lot more a Department of Health got, you know, you know A few more millions from that as well. We talked about that this time but but but the idea here is that There was supposed to be millions and millions of dollars Going toward the contract a contact tracing effort Okay, and then and then what happens a group of senators raid the department To find out if the contract the contact tracers actually exists or they do Okay, we all we all know what happened after that read, right? Besides it being decried by the governor and by Bruce Bruce Anderson Department of Health is being what the heck are you doing? This isn't polite at all. Uh, well, you know, this is like this is legislative oversight They they also they although senators also say that it was okay with Sarah Park It was discussed with Sarah Park in advance And effectively she invited them in I don't think Bruce Anderson invited them in and I don't Think David E. Gain invited them in but they had at least some some caller of a request there. Yeah. Yeah, yeah It's not it's not like they totally barred it in hundred percent unannounced Although if you listen to just Bruce Anderson or the governor you would probably come to a different Yeah, so So so so we have like a handful of traces that were found at the at the department else All being, you know, totally beleaguered and overworked having hundreds of cases assigned to them and Admitting to the Hawaii news now cameras that oh, you know, we can't get through all this in a day. There's no way So The question that becomes well Why aren't you hiring more people like you said you would you ask that as for for information for the department of health And they may say, oh, you know, we'll we'll get around to answering you when we're good and ready when operations are, you know, Resume some normalcy but you know That's not going to happen in the foreseeable future Things things are not normal And the public wants to know now what the heck is going on Well, didn't they say they were going to hire hundreds and hundreds of Tracers That they recognized the need this is weeks ago a month ago They recognized the need to have something over 400 of them and they were going about their business of hiring them What happened to that was that she by? Well, we don't know I Mentioned just a couple of minutes ago. I don't know if we're on there at the time or what but the the state auditor Came up with a report yesterday Saying that they were trying to figure out what was going on as well So so they can report the latest nature of the public if the Department of Health wasn't going to do it Okay, and and so they went in and they started asking some questions. So they interviewed Bruce Anderson and And a lot of questions, you know, he you know some he answered but then he says well, you really have to talk to the the disease outbreak control division branch chief and the disease investigation branch chief You know who weren't at the end He's the department head isn't he he's the department head. Yes he's the director and and and it's Not unprecedented for the director to say well, yeah, you know, you got to talk to my branch chiefs They know what you know more of the details of what's going. Okay, and then Less condos office the state auditor's office tries to schedule a meeting with the with the branch chiefs an interview with them to to Get those questions answered The day before the interview, you know, somebody calls him says why I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. We're too busy Can't do the Guys Who is your boss? Who pays your salaries? and True, it's not the auditor but Where is your responsibility to the people of the state of Hawaii? The taxpayers we we are paying through our tax monies your paycheck and You need you need to give You know us as taxpayers some answers Well, as I said the report came on yesterday though the senior order didn't get information So they couldn't really report on On what the heck was going on because they don't know so Okay, so that's the long and short of it We don't know where at least the 14 million was supposed to go or where it did go in fact Where do you think it might have gone? I mean, this is not an insubstantial amount of money Who knows There are just so many Black holes that the money could have been squirt all the way into There are just, you know, so many other things going on at the department. Yeah, the department's pretty big Yeah You think it's fair to assume that from what we do know that it did not get to testing and tracing Well, it's kind of hard to imagine that I went to tracing if there's only a handful of people there and they're hopelessly overworked And it gets worse it gets worse Because because then the The US Congress Who passed those bills obviously They they kind of had some Some questions too So on August 19th, which which is just a few days ago There was a letter that was sent to the governor from representative Anna issue from California and she happens to be The chair of the subcommittee on health of the house energy and commerce Okay, which is interested in the subject because they were instrumental in allocating the money That's right. I mean, uh, these were for these were health-related concerns. They were the ones who Doled out the money and and Representative issues observation was, you know, look guys Less than two months ago Hawaii had the lowest number of COVID-19 cases per capita of any state in the nation but now We we've kind of flipped 180 degrees Now Hawaii has the highest infection rate in the United States. This is from the letter. Okay What the heck is going on I Think it's a valid question for the for the representative to ask and Yeah, and she then goes on to ask for, you know, information documents and And the last question she asks was particularly pointed I'm going to read this one She says due to numerous instances of conflicting and false information being released to the public by your Department of Health regarding the number of contact tracers employed and their capabilities What specifications will you take or what specific actions will you take to restore the integrity of the Department of Health? That's a pointed question and And and and this is this is not, you know, Democrats v Republican. They're both Democrats We're up. She was a Democrat Governor E is a Democrat So this is this is not, you know, interparty rivalry kind of thing You know, this is this is this is a real concern From somebody in Washington who's who's got some responsibility for this under the concern over the credibility and False statements made by our Department of Health Conflicts against false information. Yes That's pretty serious So what what is what is happening about that? I mean, is that is to stop there? Well, we we do know that subsequent to that the governor Kind of reshuffled the team that was Front-facing on this on this particular issue Dr. Park was removed as the front line person and another department head was substituted in place I know reporting to But Governor So why why would the Department of Health give? You know conflicting and false information. Why would the governor do such a thing? I mean, the logical possibilities are they don't want to panic the public They themselves had false or conflicting information Or I don't know they they were trying to set up an agenda a scenario Where the public would be intentionally Misinformed or confused. I mean, these are only logical choices. But why do you think this happened? Well, my speculation and it's only speculation Is that somebody dropped the ball somewhere in the department house? They were supposed to be much further along with the contract contact tracing effort than they actually were and then There was a cascade of events trying to cover it up. So one person covers it up then Another person covers up for that person and the third person covers up for the first two And you get a cascade effect like that the result being that Information that was either misleading or false was produced so that either public wouldn't worry or or The governor's chief of staff wouldn't come down on them or you know stuff like that But But you can't help but thinking that that there is some Kind of cover-up going on even that, you know, even at the department is even at the governor's office level Because when you when you read the auditors report, right? The auditor was informed, you know before before that second meeting was supposed to happen, you know with the with the with the with the branch chiefs The order was informed that there would be an AG present An attorney general Why? Yeah Right, I mean it it says we have some legal issue We want to have real-time advice about how to cope with the questions But the questions are really fat questions. Why is there a legal issue? Yeah, and and why is there a Need to you know filter the information at all, you know coming from one branch of government to another branch of government Yeah, I have to I have to say though that my my experience with state government is that deputy attorney generals attorneys general are assigned to every meeting you can think of everything and More than most of the time you ask yourself. Why do we need a deputy attorney general at this meeting? It's like Unnecessary and yet they're always there. They're always there every board every commission Tell you it's almost it's it's ubiquitous like the sunshine law And I suspect that a lot of boards and commissioners the only real reason could be the sunshine law But that's not the case here. This this was merely a request for information through an agency or a sub agency that Had the information. Yeah. Well, you got to ask what's the attorney general going to do at the meeting, you know Basically, basically told tell the tell the speaker to shut up You know at that's that specific times if if the If the attorney general feels the questions out of bounds or whatever so so it's a means of restricting information Yes, I totally agree Yeah, so gee this is very this is disturbing and I wonder if is the public aware of this is the public disturbed by it certainly the You know the people who have oversight in the legislature are Disturbed by it. We've talked to some of them here on sync tech and they they are disturbed by what happened But what about the public in general? well, hopefully When news of this show gets out There should be a lot more public attention That's that's one reason why we're doing this Yeah So let me let me ask you there's two questions that come to mind time one is What what should The governor and the department of health have been doing to avoid this pickle they should have been Upfront with the public You know throughout the course of the process, you know, yes, we're we've hired X number of contact tracers We're going to place them into service on X X Y and Z dates Well, yeah, we have an issue trying to figure out where they're going to work out from but Maybe we put them in the convention center or you know stuff like that We you know, we get to the cooperation of government to help us with that, you know find You know additional resources if resources are needed and what kind of resources are needed and then and then we go to it This reminds me of an article I Saw in our rats, which is a Leading newspaper in in Tel Aviv and It had it had the daily report on COVID in Israel Obviously Israel has a problem with COVID also and it had columns upon columns of information No names, but everything you could print without using names without violating privacy About what was going on in Israel over COVID? If you look at the Department of Health, you know, you see the number of cases and deaths pretty much. That's it and I even wonder about that But but query why why can't the state Publish the same level of detail here. What what would hurt what would be What would be, you know inappropriate about that. What what what's the reason they they don't publish that level of detail here? I Think because they're worried that their incompetence will be exposed Okay now Let me let me kind of refresh you back to the auditor's report that you know, they're trying to be helpful and what they did is They put at the end of their report some examples of What they are doing in other states Like a New Jersey they have a contract tracing dashboard That says, okay, we have one thousand six hundred and twelve contact tracers Which is eighty-three more than last week here are the number of cases Here are the number of times we attempted outreach And the the recipient didn't take the call 20% of the time or whatever it was You know, this where does this go? I think one way one place it goes. Don't you that? If you tell the people what's going on and given that level of detail which doesn't hurt you at all In fact, it probably builds confidence for you to give that level of detail. It means you're transparent You're willing to discuss what you're doing That that people can people can make their own personal decisions with more data in mind and you know, we have a problem in Hawaii about complacency and Failure to abide by the rules as they are promulgated by the state I think if people had more information about this, they would be more likely to Determine an appropriate level of safety for themselves and More likely to abide by the rules and thus we would have Lower number of cases and deaths. Don't you agree with that? Yeah, no, I think people want to know What is going on with their tax dollars? What what what they have bought with their tax dollars? What kind of efforts have been taken and if people can see oh jeez You know, look at all of the this effort that governor the government is spending To keep this this virus under control Then maybe we better do the same thing better keep it under control as well and let's do our part Yeah, I would think that would help You know, the other thing that comes to mind is that the university was supposed to train The tracers But what I've heard is that the training they got at the university Was on some theoretical level with a level of candidate trainee That that was not appropriate. That was too much education for for the job And then when they were trained or about to be trained to the Department of Health said Wait a minute. We have to have our own training. Your training is all theoretical And so when they finish your training in Manoa, we have to train them again Which that is just an example of inefficiency galore and I don't know how far that got but that that may explain some of the fire drill notion about this But the second question I wanted to ask you though, Tom is you know, we have a crisis of credibility Or we should or we will We're all three and my question to you is how Do you think we should resolve that? How what advice would you give the governor and the director of health? To rebuild credibility in accordance with it, you know, the concerns expressed by that Congresswoman from California What should they be doing now? Stop snowing people Three words stop snowing people Give people, you know, the correct answers give them true information Let's let them know that you are sincerely working on their in their interests What what you are doing? And and stop trying to restrict the information flow doesn't work it has it has these effects of your voting confidence and And increasing the ditch the distrust of government this this goes not only to Department of Health Efforts here, but also It was recently reported that the Associated Press asked for some information from From from the governor's office and basically was told well, you know, well, we'll get around to you when we get around to you When when operations are normal again, this is an attitudinal problem then I think it is if You know if the culture is, you know Shut up, we're not going to tell you anything How do you expect the people to have confidence? Right, and if they don't have confidence in you, they're going to follow your proclamations. They're not going to take you seriously but let's assume Tom, let's assume that you write this up and Maybe others pick up on it. Let's assume that the community becomes aware from from this discussion today and from Other sources including anything you might write up What should what should the man or woman on the street do about it? If you know if it's me I would be very concerned that I wasn't getting enough information and I need more information to sort of develop You know a perception about what is going on in this state how it compares with other states What can be done what should be done by government? What are the policies and initiatives that should be adopted to save us just right now? We're we're in terrible shape We're we're a hot. We call it a hotspot and we're not doing well Just as that California Congresswoman said What should the man in the street or the woman in the street do knowing about this What I would say is call your senator representative. See you have concerns and you know, hopefully When the senators or representatives phones start ringing off the hook, they'll be motivated to do something and And hopefully they can Or call the governor or call the department of health, you know when when people's phones start ringing off the hook they're motivated to do something And hopefully it'll be for the better We can do better. We can do better on every level on being transparent and on hiring and training Tracers and actually tracing and thus actually suppressing the curve which we need desperately to do And also making people feel confident that the government is doing the right thing taking the right steps Well, thank you so much for talking to us about this time. This is a very important discussion tonight And I hope it goes somewhere and I hope the phones do ring off the hooks as you say Tommy, I'm a chica president of the tax foundation of Hawaii. Thank you for having me on the show