I’m not saying anybody lied.

I’m not saying this is surprising.

But dang it, we all saw it coming, covered our eyes and crossed our fingers like maybe it wouldn’t happen. And of course it’s happening.

In January 2007, Hawaiʻi started paying an extra 0.5% excise tax on all business activities to help pay for the rail. It was framed as almost an emergency make-or-break move to save the Honolulu rail project. “This is our last chance to qualify for federal dollars,” Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann said.

The tax increase was supposed to expire at the end of 2022. It was just a temporary thing, like a bridge loan, like a car snack, like a promise ring. Just enough to get things going.

That was a whole other era, back when Hannemann was the most ambitious guy in town, Linda Lingle was governor, and Joe Souki was the powerful speaker of the House. Aloha Airlines’ pretty orange-tailed planes were still flying, Honolulu had two newspapers, and Safeway sold a dozen eggs for $3.09. The year 2022 seemed far away.

By 2015, it became clear that the temporary general excise tax surcharge would be needed for the rail project beyond 2022, so it was extended by the Legislature.  

Then it was extended again in 2017.

And now, as Kevin Dayton reported, a bill is moving through the Legislature to extend the rail tax all the way to 2045.

Temporary for 38 years. Unbelievable, right? Nah. Totally believable.

Did we know rail project would be perpetually subsidized?

Yes. Yes we did. Despite what we were told by the Legislature, we knew. They did, too.

Much maligned (by me) former Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell was one of the few Democrats over the years who straight up said the rail tax should be permanent. “I do support continuing this excise tax by half a percent. While I know there is some pain in paying it, I think there’s great benefit,” he said in an interview with KITV in 2017.

Former state Sen. Jill Tokuda was one of the few Democrats who straight up said the GET tax should not be extended. Tokuda was head of the Senate Ways and Means committee in 2017 when she opposed extending the general excise tax to fund rail. She was then removed from her position as WAM chair as punishment, and the tax was extended again by the legislators who, again, said it would be just a temporary thing.

Who else spoke against the “temporary” excise tax?  Hawaii Republicans, of course. The late Sen. Sam Slom was all over it. “We are here today, if we support this, enslaving further the taxpayers of the City and County of Honolulu,” Slom said, speaking in opposition to another extension being discussed in 2015.

As a City Council member, Charles Djou seemed like the only one to take some math skills to the numbers.

“The general excise tax will garner $150 million a year for 16 years. That amounts to $2.4 billion. The truncated system is $4.2 billion and the full build-out of the 28-mile system is $6.1 billion so the numbers are not adding up,” Djou said in opposing the tax.

Former GOP Rep. Cynthia Thielen stopped talking about hemp for a minute to say, “We are the enablers. We absolutely cannot wash our hands of this. We are the first step, the enabling step that is going to allow the city to raise the general excise tax.”

And, as columnist Richard Borreca quoted former Republican legislator Bud Stonebraker to sum up the opposition: “There’s nothing so permanent as a temporary government program.”

One thing we didn’t see coming when the excise tax hike was first approved in 2005 was how the number of people commuting to downtown from Ewa and Kapolei and Pearl City would change.  

Since the pandemic, there has been a noticeable thinning out of people in downtown offices as work-from-home became not only possible but preferable. Office buildings are being turned into residential projects in Honolulu’s business district. Those new downtown residents do not need a train.

Initially, Skyline was projected to see 10,000 riders a day. The highest day of ridership last month was 4,335 commuters. The average was 2,977. On four days, Skyline was shut down.

But we will have a train, whether people ride it or not, and, as we all know though it hurts to acknowledge, we will pay for it through a “temporary” tax forever.