raise taxes or cut programs?

Unless there’s a miracle economic recovery - and there won’t be - the choices are to cut back on services and programs or raise the excise and/or income taxes.

If we slash services we also put more government and outsource employees out of work and on the strained unemployment insurance rolls. We also lose their share of the tax base. If we cut programs, we hurt the people they serve - people the most in need of help.

So, as Walter Takeuchi of Aiea recently wrote to the Star-Bulletin, why not raise the general excise tax rather than “resorting to the many senseless solutions being proposed to cut costs?”

Well, businesses answer that. On Oahu, a retailer already pays $4.71 on every $100 of sales because of our 4.5 percent-tax-on-the-4.5 percent-tax system. And if you’re making more than $150,000 a year you’re already paying an 11 percent income tax - one of the highest in America.

So what would I vote for as a lawmaker? More tax or fewer services and programs and likely more layoffs?

I don’t know, and wouldn’t want to have to make that choice.