Some critics of Ige’s policy argued that squirreling away so much revenue wasn’t as important as providing financial relief to residents struggling with high costs of living.

“It sounds good—it’s going to sound good to the average taxpayer who thinks it’s a good thing to save money, but if we’re just sitting on money that is not being put to good use today when there are a lot of good uses for it, then I don’t think we’re being responsible,” Randy Perreira, executive director of the Hawaiʻi Government Employees Association, said at the time.

The nonprofit Hawaiʻi Appleseed Center for Law & Economic Justice also expressed concerns with Ige’s policy.

Victor Geminiani, who then was the organization’s co-executive director, said at the time, “I’m a fiscal conservative, and I believe that you really have to watch how you spend dollars, but at some point you’ve got to deal with the current realities, not necessarily the future contingencies.”