Climbing out on a metaphorical limb, Paul Brewbaker, one of Hawaii’s most respected economists, says when he looks at Hawaii, he sees “an old steamship that hasn’t had its barnacles scraped off the hull in 30 years, needs a paint job, with lifeboats of now-dubious integrity for lack of having had emergency drills, with an engine that makes noises the crew can’t quite identify.”
The clunking economy Brewbaker views is failing because it cannot provide the roads, sewers, airports and schools needed to succeed in the 21st century.
Speaking last month before the legislative committees that will write the state budget, Brewbaker said, “The rise in private sector commitments-to-build since 2010 took place largely in permits for additions and alterations — used buildings — but not as much for new buildings.
“Hawaii in the 1960s and 1970s invested more in public capital formation than at any time in the last two decades,” he said.
In an interview, Brewbaker explained that Hawaii has gone through three major investment waves. First was the period of early statehood when a new state just needed to build everything. Second was the Japanese investment real estate bubble, and finally it was the growth coming from the cheap money subprime mortgage bubble.
The state might now be entering a new period of growth fueled by private and public construction.
But, Brewbaker advised, the new building is not close to what is needed.
“The state and the counties spend most of their time preventing development from occurring nowadays, and have essentially given up on significantly investing in Hawaii’s future,” Brewbaker said.
Even when government does push for construction, it is not to make more, but simply to replace what has crumbled, Brewbaker said, recalling the city’s efforts to replace the sewers after a disastrous leak in 2006.
“Letting a 40-year-old force main sewer blow up in Waikiki because it is too old and too full, and then replacing it with a pipe of the same diameter, pretty much reveals that the jurisdiction’s idea of the future is ‘no growth,’” Brewbaker said.
Others, however, say the issue of spending more is more complex than a question of build or not build.
State Rep. Bertrand Kobayashi, the former executive secretary of Gov. George Ariyoshi’s Commission on Population, pointed out that Gov. David Ige was asked by his administration to spend $2.5 billion in state construction this year, but then trimmed the final request to $885 million.
And before the state or counties can go on a building spree, the budget committees must still answer the question of how much can the state afford and how much new construction can be maintained.
Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at rborreca@staradvertiser.com.
