What do estate tax cuts for the wealthy say about Hawaiʻi’s priorities?

For years legislators have talked about the need to better support working families in the state. They’ve taken important steps in recent years, increasing the minimum wage and creating a working families tax credit.

Yet incomes still are not keeping pace with soaring housing prices and other costs, and families that have called Hawaiʻi home for generations are being forced out.

This year, lawmakers had the opportunity to pass multiple proposals that could have made a difference: a state-level child tax credit; a modest rent relief fund to prevent evictions; and universal free school meals for children in public schools.

But lawmakers rejected each of these proposals. 

At the outset of the session, legislators were publicly fretting over the state budget and the financial impact of the Maui wildfires. Just weeks ago, legislators asked state department heads to prepare for the possibility of 10-15 percent cuts in spending on education and human services—cuts that would have been devastating for the well-being of Hawaiʻi’s people. 

All the while they’ve been advancing Senate Bill 3289 and House Bill 2653, which would deliver a tax cut of up to $43 million for the top 0.2 percent wealthiest families in the state.