It was just over a year ago that the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii produced a report stating: “Hawaii’s state budget does not have the extra cushion to deal with a large recession, if one should hit, so lawmakers should rein in spending and build up a financial reserve, rather than
Hawaii lawmakers must not be afraid to cut the state budget __________ By Joe Kent, Ken Schoolland, Per Bylund and Victor V. Claar In the rush to mitigate the economically devastating impact of Hawaii’s state-mandated shutdown, many lawmakers and policy wonks have been invoking “the multiplier effect.” For example, when Gov.
This probably won’t surprise regular readers of my “President’s Corner” columns, but a task force of eminent Hawaii business and other community leaders has just issued a warning that Hawaii’s current rate of government spending is not sustainable. In a new report from the Hawaii CHANGE Initiative, titled “Troubled Waters:
Maui County Council members say they spend more than 40 hours per week on the job, and some of them want higher salaries to account for that hard work. But, like Hawaii’s late small-business guru George Mason, founding publisher of Pacific Business News, used to say, it’s not how hard
When friends visit the islands, I love to show them Hawaii’s beautiful mountains, beaches and sunsets, but I try to direct their eyes away from the state’s crumbling government infrastructure. The state’s disintegrating roads, brittle bridges and run-down public buildings are partly due to short-term thinking. What we need is
This article was originally published in The Maui News on Thursday, Nov. 29. Maui County Council members this month voted to “go vertical” and move forward on financing a proposed $81.2 million Wailuku Civic Complex, but policymakers would be wise to focus less on the expected benefits and more on the guaranteed
A bill intended to help government agencies compete against higher salaries in the private sector by giving college tuition grants to state employees is based on a dubious claim, writes Joe Kent, Grassroot Institute of Hawaii vice president of research, in the Honolulu Star Advertiser. “Local government workers on average
Kakaako Waterfront Park was supposed to be the kind of scenic public space that leaps, unprompted, to the imagination at the words “Honolulu” and “park.” On the cusp of its opening in 1992, politicians spoke about how it was going to be “people-oriented.” The park would become a place where
Should Hawaii continue ramping up police spending when crime has fallen so much?
During a special session this summer, Hawaii lawmakers passed a bill that is both illegal and unfunded. The bill offers a $60 million severance package to union workers at the Maui public hospital system who will lose their jobs due to privatization, even though all the workers have already been
It was just over a year ago that the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii produced a report stating: “Hawaii’s state budget does not have the extra cushion to deal with a large recession, if one should hit, so lawmakers should rein in spending and build up a financial reserve, rather than
Hawaii lawmakers must not be afraid to cut the state budget __________ By Joe Kent, Ken Schoolland, Per Bylund and Victor V. Claar In the rush to mitigate the economically devastating impact of Hawaii’s state-mandated shutdown, many lawmakers and policy wonks have been invoking “the multiplier effect.” For example, when Gov.
This probably won’t surprise regular readers of my “President’s Corner” columns, but a task force of eminent Hawaii business and other community leaders has just issued a warning that Hawaii’s current rate of government spending is not sustainable. In a new report from the Hawaii CHANGE Initiative, titled “Troubled Waters:
Maui County Council members say they spend more than 40 hours per week on the job, and some of them want higher salaries to account for that hard work. But, like Hawaii’s late small-business guru George Mason, founding publisher of Pacific Business News, used to say, it’s not how hard
When friends visit the islands, I love to show them Hawaii’s beautiful mountains, beaches and sunsets, but I try to direct their eyes away from the state’s crumbling government infrastructure. The state’s disintegrating roads, brittle bridges and run-down public buildings are partly due to short-term thinking. What we need is
This article was originally published in The Maui News on Thursday, Nov. 29. Maui County Council members this month voted to “go vertical” and move forward on financing a proposed $81.2 million Wailuku Civic Complex, but policymakers would be wise to focus less on the expected benefits and more on the guaranteed
A bill intended to help government agencies compete against higher salaries in the private sector by giving college tuition grants to state employees is based on a dubious claim, writes Joe Kent, Grassroot Institute of Hawaii vice president of research, in the Honolulu Star Advertiser. “Local government workers on average
Kakaako Waterfront Park was supposed to be the kind of scenic public space that leaps, unprompted, to the imagination at the words “Honolulu” and “park.” On the cusp of its opening in 1992, politicians spoke about how it was going to be “people-oriented.” The park would become a place where
Should Hawaii continue ramping up police spending when crime has fallen so much?
During a special session this summer, Hawaii lawmakers passed a bill that is both illegal and unfunded. The bill offers a $60 million severance package to union workers at the Maui public hospital system who will lose their jobs due to privatization, even though all the workers have already been