THE amazing thing about our summer and fall of conclaves, hearings, conferences, congresses, Chautauquas, sensitivity sessions and just plain old griping is how much can be traced back to the economy. How to fix the economy
still isn’t clearWhen politicians go out in the community they usually get a good understanding of what is upsetting the villagers.
In past years, politicians would report back from the neighborhood board meetings that crime was driving the voters.
At other times, the bedeviling crisis was the failure of our public schools to produce competent graduates, or the inability of Honolulu's transportation grid to move our people around the island.
Now, when the economy fails, however, we all know it.
What still isn't clear is how to fix it.
Gov. Ben Cayetano's economic recovery task force came up with some ideas, but there are a lot of uncrossed T's and undotted I's in the document signed by the participants.
For instance, the trickiest suggestion is to raise the excise tax 35 percent, with the hope that this increase will dun the tourists, but leave the local folks with fat pockets because the income tax rates will have been lowered.
It is a fine idea. Exporting taxes is a perfectly rational tax strategy, but there are no assurances that it will work and that it will hit only those with out-of-state driver's licenses. In fact, the League of Women Voters is building a fairly convincing case that increasing excise taxes would move the tax to the poor to the benefit of the middle class and the rich.
But there are a lot more questions about this plan. First, how solid is it? Cayetano and the other political leaders all signed it. But there are also indications that it can and will change. More hearings are to be held. Will the plan change? If so, what was it that Cayetano and the others signed? Was it a waste of ink?
How exactly will the Cayetano conference make its decisions? The meeting itself was not open to the public. The only discussions with the panel have been carefully controlled.
The conference even bought time on KHON-TV for a one-hour "infomercial," hosted by Channel 2 news reporters and anchors, but the show was controlled by the Economic Revitalization Task Force. An audience was included to give the feeling of a town meeting, but it was a controlled event, not legitimate news.
The conference also came out with a couple of left-field proposals, including getting a major professional sports franchise. What sport? What team? Cayetano and company don't know, but they signed off on that, too.
There is a lot of concern that somehow the state should do something with the one bright spot in the economic picture: retailing.
It is an odd reaction, because retailing is the one area that appears to be doing well and has generally been untouched by government.
THE biggest miracle in Hawaii's economic landscape was created out at Waikele, where shopping is booming. When the shopping center was built no one envisioned that it would become a mecca for tourists. But it has.
Of course, when the state tried to encourage retailing, it produced the Aloha Tower Marketplace, which has been bouncing in and out of bankruptcy. On a more limited scale, the city has been unable to do anything with prime retail space at Ala Moana Center as it attempts to peddle municipal goods.
What hasn't been discussed might be the most successful: Just let go.
Read the full text of the
Economic Task Force recommendations.