Gov. David Ige had the right instinct when he doubted an extension of Oahu’s rail excise tax was needed this year, and hopefully he’ll hold firm as the Legislature waffles.

Mayor Kirk Caldwell and Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation orchestrated a false crisis to stampede the Legislature into giving them more money and don’t deserve to be rewarded for the theatrics.

The $900 million deficit that raises rail costs to $6 billion was a long time coming, but the city didn’t disclose it to the public or legislators until shortly before the session.

HART directors held a closed meeting to plot how to manipulate lawmakers.

The tax increase was scorned at legislative hearings and community meetings by a public fed up with the flimflam surrounding rail.

The muscle for more taxes comes from labor unions and monied interests that will profit from developing lands from Kapolei to Ala Moana.

At hearings, legislators were strongly skeptical of city claims that rail construction would stop if the tax extension wasn’t granted, but both houses nevertheless advanced bills supporting more taxes.

Proposals to limit the years of extension, or to conduct after-the-fact audits, are just further flimflam; more money without more real accountability is a blank check.

The city will find a way to keep construction going if lawmakers take the time to scrutinize HART’s representations and plot the best path forward before sinking more money into a rail project built on bad judgment, bad management and bad faith.

Caldwell and rail leaders show little intent to change their slippery ways as they refuse to provide a true assessment of how much they expect rail to cost in the end, continue the loose accounting and resist full transparency.

HART won’t consider making do with what it has via seemingly viable options such as trimming costs by ending this phase of construction near Aala Park instead of Ala Moana Center.

Many commuters would have to be bused to their final destinations either way, and stopping near Aala would still serve downtown while averting the high cost, archaeological disruption and visual blight of running the elevated train through the city center.

If HART could get that far with fewer theatrics, we could better judge if it’s worth investing more.

Arguments that we can’t change the plan because it endangers federal money are thin.

Hawaii’s congressional delegates could likely facilitate an agreement for sensible changes; even if they couldn’t, federal money pays but a fourth of rail costs and it’s foolish to let minority funding be the driver instead of local funding that digs ever deeper into the pockets of Oahu taxpayers.

The shorter route is a possible compromise that gives most interests some of what they want and is worth the time to honestly assess benefits and drawbacks.

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Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com or blog.volcanicash.net.