The job of elected officials is to solve problems. But as a certain skill at political maneuvering is required for most to get elected, a fair amount of what we witness in the halls of government is more the gamesmanship than the goods.

That’s what was on display on Monday — more posturing than policymaking — in Sen. Jill Tokuda’s Ways and Means Committee discussion on the rail financing crisis.

Tokuda has taken Mayor Kirk Caldwell to task over his current petition for an extension of the general excise tax (GET) surcharge, the primary means of underwriting the city’s troubled elevated rail project.

Her only concession was to relinquish the “skim” — the 10 percent of the surcharge revenue that the state has kept for years, without justification. That is a step toward reconciling the books, but only the first step.

As virtually the entire population of Oahu now knows, anticipated costs for the 20-mile project are now running ahead of revenues by an amount approaching $3 billion.

That is why, for a second time, Caldwell is asking that the sunset of the half-percentage-point GET surcharge to be extended, or eliminated, so the city can be assured of paying a rail tab that now could total $10 billion.

And time is of the essence for such assurances. The Federal Transit Administration expects a new financial plan, revised to accommodate the new, sky-high cost estimates, in April, ahead of the time lawmakers usually finish up.

Tokuda seems unaffected by a mounting sense of urgency around this project. She seems content to wave a plan in front of the mayor and his Oahu constituents that falls far short of a real solution.

That would be the latest version of Senate Bill 1183, ostensibly the vehicle for extending the GET surcharge, which, based on information at hand, remains the only viable solution for spreading out the additional cost equitably.

The chairwoman seems unconvinced. Instead, she concluded, without providing any supporting facts, that the city can and should come up with most of the needed funds on its own — $500 million more, plus about $1 billion in contingency funds.

In exchange, the Senate bill would return the state’s skim, which should yield about $300 million over the course of the remaining tax period, through 2027.

Tokuda told the mayor she’s convinced that money exists in the city budget — precisely where, she doesn’t say — and rejected arguments that a property-tax increase is the only recourse.

Ordinarily, it wouldn’t be the Legislature’s duty to figure out the city’s budget details. But Tokuda’s proposal essentially would force a redirection of city spending priorities on Honolulu.

So state lawmakers would bear some responsibility for that, and they owe Honolulu taxpayers some serious numbers-crunching.

Tokuda does make some credible points in her argument that the city — and the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation — have failed to execute fiscal management as they should.

That shortcoming dates back years, when the city first made faulty assumptions about the timetable for the project, the economic conditions confronting the construction industry, and the bid amounts officials would get as a result.

They also failed to grapple with additional engineering costs, especially along the congested Dillingham segment of the route, that should have been confronted much earlier. If they had done so, they could have presented lawmakers with a more accurate projection of costs in 2015, the last time the GET surcharge was extended.

But we need solutions, not finger-pointing. The Senate must know its plan will not provide a route to complete the project Honolulu needs. Its leadership needs to buckle down and deliver one that will.