It is rather interesting how the daily newspapers, local elected officials, bureaucrats and other fellow travelers are falling all over themselves in an attempt to rebut the Census Bureau’s report that Hawaii’s tax bill is among the highest in the nation. They trot out the usual excuses such as the state pays for education while that is typically a local expenditure and that a portion of the tax is paid by tourists.

But excuses are what they are. There isn’t a tax increase or a new spending program that a majority of our elected officials and the sycophantic major news media in this state don’t routinely support. The fact is taxes in this state are more than burdensome and is a major reason why the cost of living and housing is becoming increasingly unaffordable.

The claim that because the state runs the school district it skews the tax figures is spurious considering the atrocious nature of Hawaii’s schools. This is an argument for changing and breaking up the school system not one for justifying those taxes. You will never hear this from anyone in this state’s mainstream media though.

That tourists pay for a portion of the state’s taxes is also a specious argument. Tourists pay nothing in income taxes which is a significant portion of the tax burden. What tourists pay in excise taxes is what they aren’t buying from local vendors and businesses because their buying power is reduced by that amount. Also the same could be said for any state that has a significant tourist trade which means that fact would have to be taken in to account as well when making comparisons with other states but this is never considered either.

The fact of the matter is Hawaii is overtaxed, period. All the excuses and dodging of the issue cannot obscure that fact. State spending is continually increasing and new programs such as the recently proposed free healthcare insurance plan for uninsured children is only going to add to that spending. Such plans always end up costing more than planned and taxes will only increase yet more.

The figures on state spending in Hawaii speak for themselves. Spending on education is 34.5 percent higher per person than the national average. Government administration is a whopping 130 percent more per capita. State debt is 78 percent more per person than the national average.

On every level of government spending is out of control and the vast majority of our elected officials and their friends in the main stream media simply refuse to recognize that fact. This will continue until the drag on the economy becomes so great that we enter into a recession.

There will be casting about looking for who is to blame and eventually the culprit will be claimed to be “big business” and the “failed free market.” But those same people who actually will have brought us to recession with their profligate spending and overburdening taxation will never consider themselves as being responsible when in truth they are.