New year a good time to ditch harmful old ideas

by Keli'i Akina, Ph.D. President / CEO Grassroot Institute of Hawaii

At the dawn of a new year, it’s always nice to take stock of where we have been and where we are going.

It’s also a good time to identify harmful old ideas that have done nothing to help and should be sent to the scrapyard.

One of those is that more government regulations or spending can solve our housing crisis.

As extensive research has shown, more regulations will not solve Hawaii’s housing crisis, and neither will more government housing programs — generally a highly inefficient way to use valuable taxpayer dollars. It also won't help to go after scapegoats such as out-of-state homebuyers, short-term rentals or dubiously defined empty homes.

The real key to producing more housing is to get our local governments out of the way as much as possible and let homebuilders do what they do best — build homes.

Fortunately, many Hawaii lawmakers recently have been acknowledging this, and we need to keep up the momentum.

Then there is the tired old idea that government spending should never be trimmed.

Perhaps partly because Hawaii is the only state that does not require some sort of fiscal assessments of all proposed legislation, this idea has led to state and county budgets that grow year after year, leading in turn to higher taxes, economic stagnation and population exodus.

Gov. Josh Green has shown some admirable spending restraint at times, but far more could be done.

Finally, for now, one more harmful idea we should ditch is that we need to strictly license people who simply want to work at certain crafts or professions — allegedly in the name of protecting the public’s health and safety.

Research shows that job licensing — a practice similar to the guilds of medieval times — does not necessarily protect public health and safety. Its real effect is to protect established industries from newcomers, which contributes to higher prices for consumers and unemployment for people who want to work in those fields.

I’m sure it would be almost impossible politically to remove or reduce such regulations for some crafts or professions. But should we really be making it so hard for people to become hair braiders, makeup artists, unarmed security guards, auctioneers or bartenders?

Let’s clear away these harmful old ideas and make room for new ones. We need more housing. We need less government spending as a percentage of our economy. And we need more job opportunities.

As we begin a new year, let’s commit to embracing ideas that could help everyone in Hawaii become more free and prosperous.

And as always: E hana kākou! (Lets work together!)