Akina hails highlights of 2025, has high hopes for more victories in 2026

from Grassroot Institute of Hawaii

There is much to be upbeat about the past year, according to Keli‘i Akina, president of the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii. And the future looks bright for 2026, he said, speaking this past Sunday with host Johnny Miro on the H. Hawaii Media radio network.

“I’m hopeful for 2026 and the years to come,” he told Miro. 

Akina said one of the year’s highlights was the largest personal income tax cut in Hawaii history which took effect this year. 

He also referenced Grassroot-supported state and county legislation that will make it easier and more affordable to rebuild Lahaina properties that were destroyed or damaged in the August 2023 fires. 

Akina also hailed the reform of the state’s civil asset forfeiture laws, saying it “goes a long way toward accountability and justice.”

Looking ahead to 2026, Akina said Grassroot will continue to push for reduced government regulations at both the state and county levels, and keep pressure on state lawmakers to avoid increasing taxes.

He said another priority will be to help reduce regulations on businesses, such as for hair braiders who must undergo time-consuming and costly licensing procedures before they can work, and farmers and ranchers who want to build workforce housing, or even just sheds, barns, greenhouses or other structures.

Akina added that though many Hawaii residents are struggling, “the No. 1 thing that gives me hope is the people of Hawaii. I think we’ve got a marvelous population base, wonderful people from all across the world, as well as the local kamaaina. … If we put our minds to it, use good principles and rely upon one another and work together, I think we can solve our problems.”

TRANSCRIPT

12-21-25 Keli‘i Akina with host Johnny Miro on the H. Hawaii Media radio network

Johnny Miro: Happy Sunday morning to you. I’m Johnny Miro. It’s time for our H. Hawaii Media family of radio stations’ Sunday morning public access programming — our five radio stations on Oahu; we have four on Maui and five on the island of Kauai. We’re also available via your smart device at hawaiistream.fm and Live365. 

Getting close to wrapping up the year 2025 and heading into 2026. What it has in store for us? Well, we’ll take a look at that. Hopefully, a lot of positives. And we’ll take a look back on some of the positives and some of the things that didn’t work out that well this morning with our guest.

Well, Hawaii seems to be as expensive as ever, but as I mentioned, our guest believes always in a positive outlook, and hopefully, he believes in this instance that there’s a lot of hope for the new year. 

Speaking about Keli‘i Akina, president and CEO of the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii. Great to have you along on this Sunday, Keli‘i.

Keli‘i Akina: Johnny, it’s great to be with you, especially during this holiday season. I wish you and your listeners the very best. Aloha.

Miro: Aloha to you. And what we have to look forward to: The Legislature will get together in 2026, of course, and maybe some new state laws, state and county laws, that could help increase the freedoms over here, maybe even lower our cost of living, and make Hawaii a place where we can all thrive and prosper. 

So, Keli‘i, you’re always a person of great hope. What gives you hope for Hawaii’s future as we look into the new year?

Akina: Well, the No. 1 thing that gives me hope is the people of Hawaii. I think we’ve got a marvelous population base, wonderful people from all across the world, as well as the local kamaaina, and that we can solve any problem that we’re facing. 

But, you know, Johnny, people are really struggling though, and they’re actually losing hope. 

A recent study came out that showed that about 70% of the middle class are thinking of leaving Hawaii just because they can’t afford to live here. They can’t afford housing, they can’t afford food, they don’t have the jobs that they need. And that’s really depressing for a lot of people.

But I want to get to your point, which is we do have reason for hope. There were lots of things that went well in 2025 and before that. For example, recently the Legislature passed the biggest tax cut in the history of the state. And we also found ways to help people to rebuild in Lahaina. 

If we put our minds to it, use good principles, and rely upon one another and work together, I think we can solve our problems. 

So, I’m hopeful for 2026 and the years to come.

Miro: I know you always say, “E hana kākou.” So that definitely is the mantra for this year. 

What kinds of things does the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii do to help effect positive change here in Hawaii, Keli‘i?

Akina: Well, you just mentioned one: “E hana kākou,” which is just, let’s work together. I think that’s the spirit we want to inculcate throughout the islands. It is the islands spirit.

It doesn’t matter what political party you are, Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Green Party, whatever it may be. The bottom line is that we’re all in the same boat together, and we’re canoeing together, and we’ve got to realize that a rising tide lifts all boats, and so we’ve got to work together. 

And that means that at the Grassroot Institute, we don’t focus on politics. We focus on issues: housing, jobs, education, things that are of importance to people, and things that cost people, and things that can give hope if done right.

On one hand, we’re a research institute. We do think-tank work, the best research on local issues affecting the economy. But beyond that, we actually get out there and meet the people. 

We do education, we meet the public leaders, our government officials, and we talk and we advocate for good solutions. 

I think the most important thing we do is we bring people together to find solutions to the problems that we’re facing.

Miro: And you’re not just talking about the island of Oahu, you’re talking about the neighbor islands also.

Akina: Oh, that’s right.

Miro: Yeah.

Akina: In fact, Johnny, much of our work is done on the neighbor islands, especially during times of crisis, such as on Maui recently during the aftermath of the wildfires, on Kauai and elsewhere, and on the Big Island. So we are a statewide organization serving the people all across the pae ‘āina.

Miro: All right. Let’s take a look back, Keli‘i. What are some of the good policy changes in 2025 that the Grassroot Institute had a hand in it?

Akina: Well, let me start at the state level. We do work at the state and the county level and a little bit at the federal. But at the state level, we worked really hard to keep government accountable, and I think that’s important to everybody. In fact, as a result, we work with people from all political backgrounds on that issue of accountability. 

One of the bills that was passed — and we’re just really glad for the people who rallied around this — was a reform of the state civil asset forfeiture process. 

In the past, though, it was so bad that when the police arrested someone, they could take their property, even if that person wasn’t charged with a crime. And oftentimes, that meant people were unfairly deprived of their property.

But now law enforcement has to change that. Individuals have to be charged with a crime before their property can be seized. And that goes a long way toward accountability and justice. 

And there were a lot of other bills that we worked on that became law, including one that eliminated or reduced school impact fees. 

Fees were being collected from the building of homes around schools, but they were not being put to use. And that was really just kind of robbing the people from something that they could put to better use in terms of affording the cost of living here.

At the county level, new measures related to Lahaina’s recovery, supported by Grassroot, now allow what were called non-conforming structures to be rebuilt as they were before the fires. That’s a big boon to helping families rebuild their homes. 

And so we’re getting there. Inch by inch, we’re going to make it.

Miro: I know you think, and you’re hoping, that some of those policies can be translated to Hilo, which just recently went through a fire of its own, and thank goodness it was stopped in its tracks by the Hawai‘i Fire Department without massive devastation taking place. 

I saw your paper that indicated, hopefully, those policy changes on Maui can apply to Hilo. Do you see that taking place?

Akina: Oh, absolutely. One of the problems with the rebuilding or the difficulty of rebuilding on Maui and Lahaina is that there were outdated regulations. And those are in place all over the islands, and in fact, all over the country. 

The work that was done by good people to help the rebuilding of Lahaina is now something that can be a model for Hilo and elsewhere, and even is being used in California and fires elsewhere on the mainland as policy guides. 

So the key thing is, let’s update our outdated regulations and allow people to be able to get back to the business of building their homes.

Miro: Keli‘i Akina, CEO and president of the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii. Keli’i, what about the bad and the ugly? Where do you think lawmakers went wrong?

Akina: Oh, there you go. We skipped the good, but the good, the bad and the ugly. Yeah, there was a lot of good that took place. I’m going to be honest and say that I think that the Legislature actually did a fairly good job. But there were some things that could have been better. 

They did increase the transient accommodation tax by 0.75 percentage points. We’ve got to watch that because that’s going to bite us. 

With tourism now in a slump, maybe lawmakers will realize that we can’t keep taxing the golden goose forever. And I think what we’re starting to see is a reaction, especially amongst tourists stopping their plan to come to Hawaii. And that makes kamaaina, everyone here locally, suffer more because the economy suffers when that happens.

Miro: All right. So that was one aspect. Did you want to go over any of the good bills that maybe didn’t go far enough?

Akina: Well, that’s a good way to put it, Johnny. There were some good bills, but some of them didn’t go far enough. 

In February of this past year, Gov. [Josh] Green issued an emergency proclamation, and that proclamation exempted most of the Lahaina rebuilding from the special management area regulation. But it didn’t exempt the 80 or so properties on the shoreline, makai Front Street. 

So those are sitting there, and there are owners there of businesses and homes that can’t rebuild. I wish that the decree had gone a little further.

Now, the Legislature approved a bill to codify the governor’s waiver, one draft of which would have covered shoreline properties too. But the final version of that left out those particular shoreline properties also. 

So that’s an example where the government does something good but sometimes it doesn’t go quite so far as it should.

Miro: OK. Let’s look forward to 2026. Where do you think our lawmakers should focus their efforts?

Akina: Well, one of the areas — and it’s a perennial area, it’s very important because it causes so much pain and extra cost to people — is regulations. Government needs to reduce the regulations that make it hard to build housing and make it expensive to build housing. 

Specifically, one of the things the Legislature could do is clean up regulations around farmworker housing to allow more farmworkers to actually build houses. 

Also, they could reduce [the inclusionary zoning] “affordable housing mandate.” That’s a really difficult thicket of law that makes it harder for projects to get built.

And the other thing that government can do, in terms of regulation, is reduce the regulation on our businesses. We absolutely depend upon our businesses, especially small businesses, in order to create a thriving environment that provides jobs and builds the economy. 

Let me give you an example: Anyone who wants to simply start a business of braiding hair and earn a living that way is now required, or has been required, to obtain a cosmetology license. Now, that may sound easy, but it’s not like simply filling out a form. It means 1,800 hours of beauty school, 3,600 [hours] as an apprentice, plus exams and fees.

Now, that’s exorbitant, and that’s prohibitive for people who have a skill of being able to braid hair and who do so competently, but that’s what the regulations say has to happen.

I’ll give you another example: farmers. They need to apply for permits to build things that are essential to farming, but are not necessarily actually housing. For example, sheds and barns and greenhouses and other structures that humans aren’t going to live in. 

The requirement serves only to add to their costs, and it also adds to the backlog of the permitting department. So, that’s another area we could clean things up. Let people work and build the economy around their skills and their desires.

Miro: Less regulations. All right. Keli‘i Akina with the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, CEO and president. I’m Johnny Miro. 

Have you heard any conversations about bills that might increase Hawaii’s cost of living? That’s always a scary topic, a cost-of-living increase.

Akina: Well, we hear all the time that there’s a lot of concern about the state budget. A lot of scapegoats are being called upon as to the cause for the budget concerns.

UHERO, University of Hawai‘i Economic Research Organization, is projecting that Hawaii will enter what is called a mild recession. That always makes me nervous when we have the word “mild” before “recession.” 

The governor suggested that the 2024 income tax cuts, which I praise him for, might need to be scaled back, and that makes me a bit nervous, because those were very hard-earned wins for the people of Hawaii, and we don’t want to actually reverse something that is very good, something that was done by the administration and the Legislature for which they need to be praised. They need to continue in that direction.

Other tax-hike bills — higher capital gains and conveyance taxes, for example — have been mentioned. And while these may affect those individuals with higher capacity economically, they’re the ones who allow us to have jobs for people and build the economy and so forth. And we don’t want them taking their money out of Hawaii. 

You know, the state really should first focus on cutting the bloat out of its own budget before taking more money from Hawaii families and businesses. 

So I think we’re going to see some battles here where we will see a creeping back of taxation at levels that the government had previously reversed.

I think that’s something that the people need to stand up and really voice their opinion on. It’s better that the government cuts excess spending than tax its people more.

Miro: All right. Keli‘i, as we wrap things up here, anything else that you’d like to add?

Akina: Well, first of all, remove the barriers to building more housing. And the biggest barrier of all is government red tape. 

Protect the recent tax cuts. That’s so important. That was a hard-earned win for the people of Hawaii. Let’s let them keep the win. 

Solve the root causes of our problem, the problems of unaffordability in Hawaii, instead of blaming scapegoats. 

It’s too easy for the Legislature to target certain groups, the wealthy, tourists, short-term home renters and others. Their impact as an individual group is not sufficiently significant to be trying to prevent them from conducting business in Hawaii, but it’s easy to name a scapegoat.

Instead, let’s look at the root causes and get rid of all the regulations that cause the high cost and scarcity of housing. 

Another thing is, let’s allow people to work freely in their area of expertise or interest, like hair braiding or farming and so forth. 

And I’ll just close with this, Johnny: It all goes back to principles. Let’s get politics out of the picture and get it back to working together around commonly held principles, like guaranteeing each other’s individual liberty and our economic freedom. 

That’s something worth fighting for.

Miro: Sounds like it. Your website that people can go to and look at all the great work you folks do over there at Grassroot?

Akina: That’s right. www.grassrootinstitute.org. That’s Grassroot without an “s” at the end, grassrootinstitute dot O-R-G. And you’ll find a wealth of information about topics that will inform you about current issues.

Miro: OK. We’ll look forward to seeing all the great work you folks are going to be doing in 2026 around the state. Keli‘i, I wish you the happiest of a Christmas season. I wish you all the best in the new year.

Akina: Johnny, same to you and your listeners. Aloha, Mele Kalikimaka, and have a Happy New Year.