Give privatized public schools a try. The Edison Project was once approved by our Board of Education, then nixed. Now Edison has scored small early successes on the mainland. Watch for another year or two. Invite it back if its success holds.
Turn the prison system over to private operation.
Privatize more of our public hospital system.
Encourage the University of Hawaii to finance more of its own operations. It is among the most state-dependent public universities in America and therefore one of the most politicized universities.
Free the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau from political meddling. Give it a performance-based contract and see what it can do.
The above notwithstanding, don't consider politics a dirty word. It's a necesary process of bringing people together by striking acceptable compromises of different interests. The problem is that our elected office-holders and our bureaucrats often overreach. They think they have to solve every problem themselves. Things usually will go better if they don't.
That goes for our courts, too. They too often make law instead of just administering it.
Turn to openness to keep government honest rather than lengthy ethics codes and procedures. Dismantle a lot of the keep-it-clean bureaucracy. Most people are trustworthy anyway. Help them stay that way by operating in a goldfish bowl rather than behind a screen of rules and regulations. Allow decision-makers to confer privately but hold them to the test of open voting and accountability for their results.
Eliminate the hideaways in the Legislature by going to one house. It will be free of conference committees and holding bills back for last-hour trades.
View government as the rule-maker and referee to keep the private sector playing field level and honest, but don't overregulate. Liberatarians doubt that we even need a government-run Defense Department. I disagree but there's much we could set free at all government levels.
Devolve decision-making to the lowest possible level of government. The state-county overlap on land use controls slows things down terribly. Why not let the counties handle land use entirely but under established state guidelines?
Get welfare and all government aid as close to the grass roots as possible with the goal of helping all who are truly deserving while freezing out free-loaders.
Trust people more. When we spot crooks and incompetents make it possible to punish or remove them without costly procedures that drag out forever.
Require our government unions to return to government the same freedom to manage available to the private sector.
Rule out all new taxes and fees. When government has money the pressure to spend is near-irresistible. Under stern financial restraints the city-county of Honolulu runs better than the state. With our present tax structure state income already grows faster than the economy.
Fill vacancies only selectively. Use smart management and computers for greater efficiency.
Shrink. Shrink. Shrink.