[ OUR OPINION ]

Lawmakers adjourn after
passing a shaky budget

THE ISSUE The state Legislature wraps up another session without tackling education or campaign spending reforms and fails in promises to seek economic diversification.

GAUGING the success or failure of a legislative session depends on points of view.

Hotel and resort owners who will benefit from generous tax credits to renovate or develop their properties would call it a success.

Voters and Governor Lingle who sought campaign spending and education reforms would not.

Neither would parents and education officials who hoped for more than the allotted $42 million, less than a tenth of what is needed, to repair public school facilities.

Lawmakers managed to square a budget against scarce state dollars, but the balancing act may tip to deficit if revenue projections later this month fall further than expected, leaving the governor to field the ball.

Residents were spared an increase in the general excise tax, which the Senate had proposed to fund public education projects. Without specifically designating all the money for the schools, the plan proved unacceptable.

Taxpayers didn't dodge all the bullets. Every wage earner making more than $10,000 a year will be hit with a $120-a-year payroll levy that will rise to $276 a year in 2011 to pay for state-sponsored, long-term care insurance that would provide dubious benefits -- unless Lingle vetoes the bill as expected.

Meanwhile, parents may have to lay out $20 for each of their children if the school they attend decides to charge a textbook fee. Lawmakers cynically pegged the program as extending autonomy to the schools by allowing them to make the choice, but the plan ignores the need for equity in funding and transfers the onus of taxation to education officials.

Despite last year's campaign rhetoric, legislators accomplished little by way of economic diversification. No strong initiatives for broadening the state's tax base beyond tourism were cleared. Instead, lawmakers gave a boost to the well-established industry, extending tax credits to the Ko Olina resort project and other hotel developers when myriad credits are already taking big bites out of state revenues. Although the credits will create jobs in tourism and construction, the trade-off may be a larger impact in the losses column.

The biggest non-budgetary issue left undone was campaign spending reform. A measure approved last year that just needed a tweak to cover legislators as well as other politicians was rendered impotent when lawmakers cut loopholes through it. Among the objectionable changes was one that could be called the "protect Cal Kawamoto" provision, which would have allowed candidates essentially to buy votes by donating unlimited amounts of campaign funds to charities "to influence the nomination and election of candidates." It was submitted by the senator, who is being investigated for allegedly exceeding the current limits.

Campaign spending reform has eluded the state Legislature for years. It may be time to set up an independent panel to deal with the issue. If not, continued lip service may be the only outcome from future sessions.