Sometimes raising taxes becomes a politically good thing.
For instance, Gov. Josh Green has won the hard battle for his new tax bill as the state Legislature closes the current session. The early indications show the first-term governor came away with a big victory by raising taxes. And the Legislature is adjourned, but expected to return later in the year.
Meanwhile, Green’s reputation wasn’t by luck or partisan politics; he had already done the before-session planning with enough assistants to make a convincing argument for more money for new environmental programs.
For Green, however, the ability to convincingly express that need for a tax increase of nearly 1% for climate mitigations was a powerful triumph.
More money is a constant plea of past governors, going back to Jack Burns.
As Green said last week in comments in a news article written about his tax increase victory, “this sets Hawaii apart in a super positive way.”
According to the reports, the tax increase could raise $100 million a year with the new money going “to prepare for impending natural disasters facing Hawaii.”
For any governor who starts his freshman term with a fire so vicious that it destroyed a major island tourist center and killed more than a hundred people — as Green did with the Lahaina fire— the catastrophe must surely frame much of your thinking about governance.
“The budget will be proposed by climate experts and me to do things to improve our infrastructure and keep us safe from disasters,” Green said.
Reaction shows that the governor is on the right path.
“This wasn’t simply a case of the Legislature yielding to political pressure. It was the result of a coordinated policy strategy that made the bill feel urgent and responsible,” said University of Hawaii political scientist, Colin Moore.
“Policy change often requires new ways of framing old problems. The green fee only became viable once it was re-imagined as a tool for disaster resilience,” Moore explained.
Green repeatedly testified in writing to the Legislature about the need to plan ahead.
The tactic was for the governor to forge ahead with an environment team that he hoped would take politics out of the equation. Still, it was amazing that a “tourist tax” glided right out of committee and as of press time was set for final approval.
Green’s successful strategy was to explain his tax increase “as a conservation measure, and recast it as a practical response to climate risk and disaster resilience,” Moore said in an interview.
For Green, the debate at the state Capitol showed he was capable of taking a disaster loaded with political consequences and move it to becoming both a solid, working solution and a successfully managed accomplishment.
Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays. Reach him at 808onpolitics@gmail.com
