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News and notes from around the interweb:
- Capital One Venture X Business up to 300,000 Capital One miles, oh my:
- Earn 150,000 miles after spending $20,000 within the first three months
- Earn an additional 150,000 miles after spending $100,000 within the first six months
- Earn 150,000 miles after spending $20,000 within the first three months
- Hawaii’s Governor: if only our state didn’t have tourism.
Green proposed a two-year “tax amnesty” to encourage owners of vacation rentals around the state to sell to owner-occupants or long-term rental landlords. Participants would be exempt from capital gains, conveyance and general excise taxes under this two-year program.
Green told reporters afterward he was going to put “a lot of pressure” on short-term rentals because he didn’t believe they were appropriate.
“I don’t want to be rude, but I do want people to realize that that market should be for our local families,” Green said. He noted that workers in a range of fields — including nurses now on strike at the state’s only pediatric hospital — are struggling because of Hawaii’s housing shortage and high housing costs.
…Green revisited the idea of imposing a fee on travelers to help pay for environmental upkeep after a proposal to do so died in committee last year. The governor suggested charging each family visiting Hawaii a $25 “climate impact fee” when they check in to their hotel or short-term rental. He said this would raise $68 million a year.
- Uber really has gotten worse, hasn’t it
Business travel in 2024:
Decent, direct flight: $139
Hotel room: $145
Round trip Uber from the airport to your hotel in the worst looking car you’ve seen in your life with a guy yelling to his cousin on speakerphone for 44 minutes: $176
— Chris Bakke (@ChrisJBakke) January 23, 2024
- “[I]t’s unrealistic and naive to believe Boeing finally found the path to correct both production and ethical lapses.”
Weren’t they just pleading for tourists after the fires? Make up your freakin’ mind, please.
Why is that guy complaining about a gross Uber when he’s flying Spirit and staying at a Red Roof Inn?
Well, I showed up here expecting to excoriate Hawaii’s lefty governor for complaining about the golden goose. However, after reading the article, I can see where he’s coming from on this. You have all these residences taken up by vacation rentals and you have bigwigs like Oprah slurping up distressed real estate as fast as they can. Which leaves normal Hawaiians with no room to move up into real estate. The place is exceedingly expensive as is, but these factors only make it worse. So, while I may not agree with Josh Green’s methods on many things, I get where he’s coming from on this one.
It seems like the scene playing out is “Hawaii for Hawaiians” (not implying the Hawaiian sovereignty movement) vs. one of Hawaii’s, if not biggest, sources of revenue.
Then there seems to be the 3rd force at play and that is the Hawaiian government that sees a way to cash in while not really doing anything to satisfy either one of the other two.
As usual, leftists will use “climate” as an excuse to do what they wanted to do anyway. Might as well, I suppose. Whenever you see “climate”, it’s a grift.
Complaining about short-term rentals seems reasonable, as it is a direct tradeoff with housing in many cases. Putting people in hotels is a more efficient use of resources. I know people with families want the space, but, for high-impact travel areas, tough luck. It is like complaining about space in NYC. We all would like more space. You just learn to live with less. You can figure out how to make it work for a week. If it is inconvenient, stay home. Judging by trends, there will be plenty of people to take your place.
As for tourism taxes, I’m good with them, so long as they are transparent. If people don’t want to pay taxes, stay home. It is perfectly reasonable to expect that people visiting your area pay for the right to maintain things.
Love visiting. And will continue to visit when I want.
@Brent – exactly correct. First of all short term rentals (mainly AirBNB) are a cancer for many places and I’m all for massive restrictions. People shouldn’t have the right to rent out rooms or entire houses in areas that aren’t zoned for hotels. This is even more of an issue in places like Hawaii, Aspen, etc where there is limited supply of residences for purchase or rent and locals need those more than visitors. He isn’t saying that Hawaii won’t continue to build huge hotel resorts, just that short term home rentals should stop.
Also, I agree that I’m fine with tourism taxes or fees. If you don’t want to pay don’t go. Tourists use the infrastructure and strain other parts of the local economy so adding a modest fee to help offset that (or better support locals) is fine. No one is owed a free or cheap vacation. If you want to visit Hawaii, Venice or similar such places just pay a little more – it won’t stop the vast majority and anyone that whines about it not “being fair” is too self-centered and entitled to take seriously.
The plot thickens on who was responsible for the 739 MAX door plug issues.
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boeing-not-spirit-mis-installed-piece-that-blew-off-alaska-max-9-jet/
Hawaii can’t make up it’s own mind or get out of it’s own way. Their main industry (pretty much the only economy on islands other O’aho) is tourism, but they hate tourists. They blame lack of housing on vacation rentals, but all the islands now have drastically limited vacation rentals, and make a lot of money off them btw (high transient taxes, application and yearly fees from hosts, 3 times higher property taxes if you short term rent). They’ve openly stated “we only want rich tourists who stay in expensive resorts and eat at expensive restaurants (in hotels)”. (The hotel lobbies are behind most of the anti-vacation rental rhetoric.) On my island the only place they want vacation rentals is in the condos along the coast, but that’s the only condos we have on the island, because people fight density everywhere else, and the people who actually work in Hawaii need to rent/buy condos because the types of jobs available don’t allow them to rent/buy the minimum $1m house. Affordable housing is constantly discussed but nothing is done about it. Construction is very expensive, permitting is slow, and if you find a bone while digging, you’re shut down for years while they make sure it’s not an ancient Hawaiian. Locals are the ones complaining about lack of housing, but every time a development is proposed they fight it tooth and nail, citing “traffic concerns” and such. I guess it’s too complicated for the county to improve roads in order to allow development. And nobody wants to do long term rentals because the laws are so anti-landlord. On my island they haven’t enforced an eviction in years.
There are plenty of destinations much more hospitable, shorter travel, and just as beautiful, and the are grateful for our contribution to their economy.
If you don’t want us to visit, Mr. Green, we will not come.
Interesting comments from the governor of a state that makes most of its money from tourism. Is the goal to make tourism so expensive (like it isn’t already) so it dries up?
CSue, thanks for the perspective. An issue with new or improved roads is that they simply encourage more traffic, which doesn’t help the overall situation. If the state or counties could cover good public transportation, even at a loss, that might help alleviate some of the issue. As for resorts, I agree but given the terribly high price of food everywhere (eliminating the possibility of all-inclusives) that is a bigger issue which as you know affects all temporary and permanent residents. A final point is breaking the power of Hawaiian Electric while further encouraging solar and wind power at the local level, maybe tapping into the ocean waves and currents too. Without that there will be constant problems in the energy sector as well. (And best of all would be repealing the Jones Act, which makes shipping anything to the islands–including PR, Guam, AS and the USVI–ridiculously more expensive than it need be.)
I think that providing housing for your locals is an admirable idea. But regulating who you could sell to to take advantage of this amnesty is laughable. Obviously, the state needs to construct housing that can only be occupied by locals. How about banishing short-term rentals completely? Buy a couple of cruise ships and dock them somewhere convenient. How would all this be work and who would enforce any of it? This is a great example of how a government COULD help, but the voters won’t support it. Nobody in the US believes that government can do anything right, so there ya have it.
Not sure I agree with your take that anti AirBnB is antitrust..
Housing shortage is real. Hawaii hasn’t become cheaper because of air bnb. Maybe hotels will become even more expensive, but they haven’t dropped on Maui even with drop in demand.
You often take the position that Airbnb is anti tourist given its lack of consumer protections. You can’t argue that both air BnB and anti- AirBnB are anti tourist.
I’m a free market guy. But when loopholes like Airbnb exist because of excessive tax/regulation, the answer is less tax/ regulation. (And not all regulation is excessive).
Meant antitourist in my first sentence, not antitrust.
What “industry” is there in Hawaii other than tourism?
There isn’t.
The hotel industry is aligned with the unions (most hotels in Hawaii are unionized) on this one, they’re trying to reduce the competition.
@Thomas – plot thickens? this is sourced to the same material I wrote about two days ago! https://viewfromthewing.com/boeing-whistleblower-production-line-has-enormous-volume-of-defects-bolts-on-max-9-werent-installed/
@Mantis … +1 .
@CSue pretty much hits all of the salient points on how Hawaii runs.
The anti-tourism rhetoric is just camouflaged anti-white racism.
These people hate that white people can afford vacations and have fun and when they see white people on “their land” it makes them envious. That’s what this is, white envy.
I find the views on short term rentals interesting. I agree that investors and others buying housing, and renting them out, restricts the availability of homes for locals, which is a problem. However – for some stays (i.e. traveling with family, a group of friends for a wedding or bachelor party, etc), AirBnB type stays are better than what is typically available in a hotel. And the demand is clearly there for all kinds of tourism real estate. So why not legalize the construction of new homes specifically targeted for short term rentals? Why not increase the construction of new hotels? And why not encourage the construction of new homes for locals?
Is it constitutional for a state to charge an entry fee? That would seem a gross restriction on the right to travel. Once one state is permitted to do this, every state would want to do the same.
RE: Hawaii. It seems like and easy solution for the Governor to implement. Require the short term rentals meet the same development, licensing, health and safety and operations criteria that the hotels do. The expense is easy to amortize over numerous rooms and years without being completely outrageous, although some may disagree with that, but for a Single family home rental, not so much.
My community HOA/POA wasn’t interested in policing short term rentals, so we banned them as did the other HOA’s in the area. Literally overnight there was available inventory for sale by out-of-town and corporate investors.
@sammins – of course it is legal. Many jurisdictions have various taxes and fees on travelers. They are often buried in the rates (and this will likely be). There is no inherent legal right “to travel”. If so airports couldn’t block people from traveling or airlines couldn’t have no fly lists (at least not without much more visibility). Also this isn’t a restriction on travel. It is simply a fee so if you want to go PAY IT – no problem. As much as there is no legal right to travel there is certainly no right to cheap or free travel. Get over yourself!
@ac: you’re absolutely wrong about the right to travel. Read the Privileges and Immunities clause of the US Constitution. Since 1868 the Supreme Court has held free movement is a fundamental right. Saenz v. Roe (1999) said visitors from another state had to be treated as welcome visitors, not a hostile stranger, and I could certainly argue that an entry tax by a state equals hostility. Name me one jurisdiction in this country that taxes all visitors regardless of income, not just people who use hotels or wants a hunting license. You should really learn something about the law before you speak about it.
@sammons – even if there is a right to travel (which I consider a broadening of the original constitution) it isn’t absolute. For example, during COVID there were many travel restrictions. Also other jurisdictions have fees and taxes applied to visitors so this isn’t breaking new ground.
Why would a fee or tax be in violation of any right? Anyone can still go to Hawaii – they just pay more for it and no court is going to rule that is a violation of anything. To believe otherwise is an awfully entitled and self-centered viewpoint
@ac: no right is absolute. You keep mentioning fees applied to visitors but you don’t give an example. It’s okay to charge a tax on lodgings, but you can’t set up a booth at the state line and charge all visitors. It would be possible to visit Hawaii and not pay a hotel tax if you stayed in a private home.
Attempts to restrict travel from one state to another, or cities that try to ban any new construction, or states that try to prevent people on welfare from moving into their state, have all been struck down by the Court.
As for a broadening of the Constitution, remember the 9th Amendment. If it isn’t written in the Constitution, it still belongs to the people. The Constitution didn’t give you the right to worship as you please, or own a firearm, or move about your country–you were born with those rights.