The folly of Hawaii’s big government philosophy is culminating in the lack of wealthy enterprises to fund University of Hawaii football. Elite college football power stems from wealthy private contributions, not from state funding.
Why our dearth of wealthy enterprises? To wit, multinationals shun our severely taxed regulatory environment: bizarre duplicative state/county land use policies; an onerous general excise tax on top of income taxes that impacts every business transaction when other states’ excise taxes normally are applied only to selling alcohol and marijuana; xenophobia that keeps stronger utilities out when they can power up dotcoms; and the Jones Act’s exclusion of foreign shippers, which keeps Hawaii from being a trans-Pacific commercial hub.
Hence, we’re renowned for political graft, hidden taxpayer subsidies to hospitals and local airlines, and a bloated state government whose per capita costs ranks among the highest in America. Kiss UH football goodbye.
Gene Dumaran
Ewa Beach
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