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This brief makes the point that Hawaii’s occupational licensing laws have made it difficult for out-of-state medical personnel to work in the islands, thereby contributing to the state’s documented shortage of healthcare workers.
Because the GET is a gross receipts tax, it becomes a significant overhead expense for private practice physicians, making it extremely difficult to be profitable — especially for new doctors who are just starting out and still paying their student loans.
In 1922, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Jones’ discriminatory legislation on the grounds that Alaska was a territory, not a state. But even when Alaska finally became a state — in 1959, along with Hawaii — the economic and social harm continued.
Hawaii’s emergency-management laws need to be reformed to prevent the extensive exercise of unchecked power by the governor. This report recommends specifically that the state Legislature step in and restore the checks and balances that have gone missing during the public health emergency, declared in an effort to deal with the spread of COVID-19.
Ocean cruising is a natural for Hawaii’s tourism industry, but federal law has held it back for more than a century. The report reviews the history of the federal 1886 Passenger Vessel Services Act, including its relationship to Hawaii, and concludes that changes are needed if tourism in the Aloha State is to reach its full diversified potential.
The protectionist federal maritime law known as the Jones Act costs the average Hawaii family almost $1,800 a year, according to this groundbreaking independent study. The law overall costs Hawaii $1.2 billion annually, including 9,100 jobs and $148 million in taxes.
This report focuses on how to deal with the so-called Konno decision of 1997, in which the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that civil service positions, with few exceptions, cannot be performed by private-sector workers, leaving the state with little flexibility in crafting public policy.
The Economic Freedom of North America 2018 report outlines Hawaii’s statistical paradox — Hawaii moved up a surprising eight notches this year in a national ranking measuring economic freedom in all 50 states, from 45 in 2017 to 37, but its overall economic freedom worsened.
