Akina gives hope to Hawaii expats during talk with Seattle radio host

from Grassroot Institute of Hawaii

The following is a complete transcript of Grasssroot Institute of Hawaii President Keli‘i Akina’s 13-minute conversation on Nov. 8, 2024, with radio host Stephen “Braddah” Gomes of the “Hawaii Radio Connection” program on 91.3 FM and 15540 AM radio in Seattle, Washington.

11-8-24 Keli‘i Akina with radio host Stephen “Braddah” Gomes on 91.3 FM KBCS, Seattle, Wash.

Keli‘i Akina: Well, Stephen, I’m just delighted to be here today with your listeners, not just in Hawaii, but across the country. 

And Grassroot Institute is an independent think tank, which means it’s not Republican, it’s not Democrat, it’s not partisan. It speaks as the voice of the people.

And we care greatly about preserving the freedoms that our Founding Fathers of this country fought for — individual liberty, economic freedom, limited accountable government. What we do is fight for those ideals in the marketplace of ideas and in the political arena. So we’re very concerned about solving some of the really big problems that people in Hawaii have. 

For example, housing — that’s a huge issue. We are now losing from our state more people than we are gaining. There’s a net loss over the last several years, and the number one reason is people can’t afford the cost of living, the biggest factor of which is housing.

But there are also shortages in terms of medical supply. There are problems we have with the transparency and accountability of government. And I could go down the list, but Grassroot Institute exists to empower people to thrive in that situation and to represent the people.

Stephen “Braddah” Gomes: So you guys do a lot of in-depth studies on how to make Hawaii, in essence, more livable. And one of the things that we discuss right here in Washington is people are moving from Hawaii — kama’aina, kanaka maoli — which is sad because it’s where they’re from. 

Hawaiians are from Hawaii and they’re moving out, they’re moving out in droves, and you know this. More Native Hawaiians live up here on the mainland or the continent than in Hawaii. And what are some of the things you guys have discovered about housing, and why there is a shortage in Hawaii, and what can you do to get that better for the people of Hawaii?

Akina: Well, as you mentioned, we do research, and the cornerstone of our work is original research by experts rather than simply rehashing what’s out there. That’s how we can get to know the problem and discover the very best solutions.

With regard to housing, part of our challenge has been to get rid of the bad ideas that are out there. For the longest period of time, many of our public leaders said that the reason we have a high cost of housing and shortage is the lack of land. But the truth is, we only build in Hawaii on 5% of the land mass — 95% is agriculture or preserve land. So that’s not true.

Others have said that the reason housing is so scarce and costly is because outside buyers from the mainland or from China are buying up all the land and driving up all the prices. But that’s not true also. We’ve researched that very carefully.

So part of our work is to dispel the misconception. The fact is, the number one reason housing costs so much in Hawaii is the cost of government regulation. For example, if you want to buy a condominium unit — maybe a two-bedroom and it costs $900,000, which actually is not a bad price in Hawaii —

Gomes: Oh my gosh.

Akina: If you wanted to buy that, $450,000 of that would be the cost of all the government regulations that were required of the developer and the owner and the Realtors in order to get that to market. 

So this is just exorbitant, and we have been at the Grassroot Institute identifying some of those regulations and going to the Legislature and cutting them. And we’ve been very successful. In this last session, we had a couple of regulations that we were able to get off the books that are going to expand the supply of housing. 

And that’s what we do for the sake of the people.

Gomes: Tell me about those regulations.

Akina: Sure. One regulation restricted homeowners from being able to add, in most cases for most homeowners, a cottage or an attachment — maybe what we call an accessory dwelling unit — so grandma could stay in it, or so the children could stay in it, or so they can make some more income and rent it out.

And there are all kinds of places where easily such a unit could be added to the lot; there are enough utilities, enough roads, enough space and so forth. So we were successful in getting passed a measure that will allow up to two accessory dwelling units per lot. 

And then we worked with the County [of Hawai‘i], to get three because you know how massive the land is out there, and it’s not uncommon for somebody to have an acre lot or a two-acre lot and so forth, which could sustain many homes. So that’s one regulation we were successful in dealing with. 

Another regulation was that you couldn’t convert business offices, even in a dilapidated business building that was mostly empty, to residential. We took that on, and now in Hawaii that’s going to be commonplace, and that’s going to allow the development of many more houses — or housing units, apartments — in the future.

One of our reports — you mentioned reports at Grassroot Institute, which people can get from grassrootinstitute.org; that’s Grassroot Institute, and we don’t have an “s” at the end; it’s not grassroots; it’s grassrootinstitute.org [where] people can get reports — one of the reports is on housing solutions. We go down the list of multiple regulations.

Gomes: You know, I saw something that took place in Hawaii that I still am scratching my head. You guys were part of the process to have the biggest tax cut in the history of the state of Hawaii?

Akina: Absolutely. I’m delighted by the fact that the Legislature this year decided that it would cut back income taxes at a massive level, and the governor, who championed this bill, signed it into law. We worked long and hard on that. In fact, it’s been years that we’ve been working on that direction.

But this year, many groups came together — advocacy groups on all sides of the political spectrum, legislators. We were behind the scenes in doing research, in writing legislation and so forth. But at the end of the day, in the 2024 legislation period, Hawaii decided that it wanted to go from being one of the most taxed states in the entire nation — for many people that would have been the fifth highest tax that you’d pay, income tax you’d pay anywhere in the country — to now in the near future we will be perhaps the 45th state.

And that is a huge transformation. I want to give my kudos to Hawaii’s political leaders. 

Now a lot of people are critical of our political system because it’s largely a one-party state, and at Grassroot we’re neither Republican nor Democrat, we’re simply for the people in terms of the issue, so it doesn’t matter whether it’s one party Republican or one party Democrat — just having one single party often prevents competition of good ideas.

Despite this, within the single party dominated by Democrats here in Hawaii, we had a historic shift of voting by Democrats to bring down income taxes, unlike anywhere else in the nation. 

I think, Stephen, one of the reasons is that the case is becoming very clear that people just can’t live and thrive in Hawaii under its current political climate. And people are reacting to that. 

We had the benefit at Grassroot Institute of being able to rally large numbers of people who are saying we’re tired of leaving the state, we’re tired of sending our children out of the state. We’ve got to build a state where people can come back home and afford to live.

Gomes: One of the things that I notice and that kind of troubles me is that you always hear about people when they go back home. Well, yeah, I have one job. I got two jobs. I have to work two jobs because Hawaii is driven by the tourist industry, and tourism doesn’t pay a lot from that standpoint. So what do you see this tax bill that you guys helped get through benefit to Hawaii residents? Do you see it really making a big change for them?

Akina: Oh, absolutely. And I’m not just talking about the numbers. We’re going to be putting tens of thousands of dollars back into the pockets of taxpayers over the next several years. And right now, it’s such a staggering thought that people haven’t really caught on. It’s impossible to believe. And I’m looking forward to the day when they have to prepare their taxes and turn them in, and they’re going to see that check. It’s very different than the ones they’ve been writing.

That’s going to empower people to make their own decisions about the use of their capital, their cash and so forth, which is an important principle of freedom. They’ll be free as consumers to spend their money the way they want, not give it to the government. 

And then, businesses will thrive. There’ll be more income. And as businesses receive that greater revenue, they will invest and they will grow and then be more prosperous. The economy will thrive. In the end, the government will collect more taxes because we’ll have a bigger economy. That’s the way it should work. 

So we’re really excited about that because that is what is necessary so that people can be empowered to continue living in Hawaii and thriving.

Gomes: And lastly, if people want to help contribute to Grassroot, is there anything that people can do to kind of help with this creative energy that you’re putting together or finding ways to make it better to live back home?

Akina: Well, we would love that. We want those of you who are listening, who are from Hawaii but can’t return because of the economic climate, to know that we’re your champions out there. We’re fighting so that you, or at least your children, can come back. And we want your partnership. We would love it. Just stay informed by receiving our free newsletters and information about Hawaii that you can’t get anywhere else. 

But also, we would love to have your sponsorship and partnership. If you can financially help support our movement, it will help so many other people to live in Hawaii, to thrive in Hawaii, to stand up to government, to be able to preserve our freedoms. And I think that’s the important thing. And we would be so appreciative to have you on board. 

Get a hold of us by going to our website, grassrootinstitute.org. Grassroot, no “s” at the end, just grassrootinstitute.org. We would gladly welcome you.

Gomes: Anything I missed that you’d like to let us know about?

Akina: Well, the only thing I’d say is this, Stephen: You’re doing a wonderful job of keeping people connected to the islands. There are so many people who legitimately can call Hawaii home, even though they have, for whatever reason, moved beyond.

Some of them have moved beyond because there are greater opportunities that they’re able to seize. Others for personal reasons, and others because Hawaii is not yet the place where they can afford to live and have the kind of employment they want and so forth.

But whatever the reason, you, Stephen, are facilitating that continued connection between Hawaii and the rest of the world. And we thank you for that, and wish you the best in all your Washingtonians who are listening right now.

Gomes: Dr. Akina, mahalo nui. Thank you so much.

Akina: Thank you. Aloha, Stephen.