Aloha Kalaheo,

1) Would you consider using your real name?  Why hide your identity in a civil debate?

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2)  I used the numbers from the Tax Foundation of Hawaii - hardly an organization devoted to disguising the impact of taxes. Check this out: http://www.tfhawaii.org/wordpress/blog/2016/09/mythbusting-hart-part-1/

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3)  If your assumption on the overall impact of the GET is correct, that it’s equivalent to a 12% to 16% sales tax (which I’m prepared to accept only for argument’s sake) then the impact of the 0.5% rail surcharge is 1.2% to 1.6%.  For a family of 5, spending $40,000 per year, that’s equivalent to $480 to $640.  Taking the higher number, the state skim of $30 million per year is sufficient to entirely reimburse the poorest 46,875 families representing 234,375 people on this island. 

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I believe in tax fairness.  Our regressive system is shameful.  It’s just a lousy excuse to kill a mass transit system whose biggest beneficiaries will be the poor.