FACE participated in a nationwide study released this week, [pdf], which not only upholds job creation projections for the rail project, but also goes into great detail about why infrastructure jobs exactly like Hawaii’s rail project are so successful in creating good jobs. The study found that Hawai’i is ranked highest among all 50 states in the percentage of apprentices working on Department of Transportation projects.

We are in fact first in the nation for using transit as an avenue to get young men and women into careers in the Building Trades! Building Trades jobs are good jobs; they pay well, have benefits and include a ladder of advancement for ambitious and skilled workers. They are also the kind of jobs you can raise a family on. But they are also the kind of jobs that helps a person hold their head high in the company of others; there is a pride in construction, the pride that comes with building something that other people need and use.

Our whole country seems mired in a debate between investing in infrastructure and cutting the deficit. Locally that debate is playing out in the argument over rail. To FACE members, the debate is ahistorical. Large scale government projects are exactly what the state and the country need right now to shake off the recession. Investment in infrastructure leads to growth by attracting private capital, encouraging business expansion, and, yes, creating jobs. It is what got America out of the Great Depression and it is the only thing that looks very promising right now.

In Hawai’i, rail is the only project waiting in the wings large enough to have a significant impact on our rising unemployment numbers. So how about we take off the ideological blinders and pick up a hammer.

About the author: Drew Astolfi is the state director of Faith Action for Community Equity of Hawaii.

The post Rail = Jobs appeared first on ÌìÃÀÊÓƵ.

Our state legislative leaders need to re-examine long held assumptions regarding the current budget debate. All revenue enhancing measures need to be on the table. During the Lingle years, the legislature became used to cutting the budget in order to make our state work. And there may have been a time for that — a time when the need to boost efficiency and the desire to trim excess spending was appropriate — but that time is now long past. Hawaii’s state government has been starved to the point where somehow we were willing to accept furloughs for school children. We actually decided to give our kids a worse education in order to save a few bucks. We made penny pinching more important that second grade, than libraries, than community centers, than Medicaid.

There is a tough truth that the legislature needs to face up to right now – and that is we need to raise revenues and spend more. Hawai’i’s human and physical capital desperately needs investment and support. We have deferred maintenance on the soul of our islands and it is time for us to sacrifice for our own common good as well as for our future. That means increasing the GET, it means closing certain exemptions to GET, but it also means looking at taxing things like soda and beer. I would not buy one less drink based on an additional tax, and I don’t think anyone else would either. Within our state we may not be able to stop the Tea Party activists in the Congress from trying to cut our Pacific Tsunami Warning System – but we can reject the logic behind that kind of conclusion here in the islands.

We all know that we cannot do more with less, we will only do less and be less. If we want the future to be better than the past, we need to start paying for it now. Hawaii is not a state with harsh tax burdens – we can and should pay more for the things that matter most. That means supporting families, educating our children well, building a place to shelter and heal the homeless and broken, and making sure our healthcare system covers everyone in our state, but it also means building a rail system and addressing our deteriorating infrastructure. We need to make the investments that grow economies. We are all in this together – we all have a stake in our state – we are stockholders in our own future, and we need to invest in our shared future if we are going to grow.

About the author: Drew Astolfi is the state director of Faith Action for Community Equity of Hawaii.

The post Hawaii Needs to Raise Revenues and Spend More appeared first on ÌìÃÀÊÓƵ.