Not since the work done by Gov. Ben Cayetano’s 1998 Economic Revitalization Task Force has Hawaii’s economy been so questioned and held up to scrutiny.

There are important differences between the two efforts.

Cayetano’s work first started as a wide-ranging, well-prepped plan aimed at changing how Hawaii taxes its citizens and businesses. Today, Gov. Josh Green is calling for changing tax law and saying it is a governmental structural change.

Cayetano’s plan was a revamping of state government, streamlining when possible and adding efficiency and demanding results-based planning to all departments.

Cayetano had two dozen of the state’s top leaders buy into the proposals and then had the work product endorsed by the 1998 state Legislature.

The timing was not coincidental. Cayetano was preparing to be matched against articulate, reform-minded Republican Mayor Linda Lingle, and he needed the state to go into the contest firing on all cylinders.

As it happened, many of the major Hawaii revitalization proposals were glossed over, but taxes were changed.

“This is an historic agenda for change, said first-term Gov. Cayetano.

He had hoped bureau-cratic-heavy state government’s red tape would be cut, state and county functions combined or smoothed together with private companies encouraged to compete for work normally done by government employees. All that would slash state spending and raise efficiency. Not all of what Cayetano hoped for was done, but some taxes were changed, the University of Hawaii was changed, the school board, too — and Cayetano won his reelection.

To this day, Cayetano’s instructional manual — called Hawaii’s Economic Future and developed by the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism under the guidance of director Seiji Naya — serves as a 24-page thesis that would make an excellent gubernatorial platform for an aspiring Hawaii politician.

I say that as I look at the tax and government reform efforts put forward by the new Gov. Green.

There’s nothing glaringly wrong with them. They are somewhat scattershot and ad hoc, but they will do to get the government-change discussion started.

The question that may be asked, but won’t be answered, is whether a makeshift tax plan will be the major result of Green’s reform-minded candidacy and his promises to dramatically change Hawaii’s tax structure.

The state is graced with a roughly $2 billion surplus, so there is no defense for not now changing Hawaii’s government’s economic strategy. Either the state is taking in too much money or it is not using it effectively.

Green calls for raising Hawaii income tax brackets and increasing the standard tax deduction. That is, according to state estimates, about $2,000 in annual tax savings.

Green’s training is as an emergency room physician and his time in the state Legislature was spent dealing with issues regarding health. As is to be expected, Green’s lawmaking experience did not extend to taxes or the structure of government.

Back in the day, Cayetano and his administration did all the homework to get everyone ready for his economic revitalization drafts to actually change state planning. It matches the foundational Hawaii State Plan as an original local government organization concept.

Green’s call to change Hawaii taxes is obviously needed — but it changes a number, not the structure of Hawaii government.

Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays. Reach him at 808onpolitics@gmail.com.