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Roth brings together two voices with starkly different readings of the same data. Paul Lister cites state personnel records showing Hawaii's executive-branch workforce grew from 37,403 to 52,672—a 40 percent jump—between 1989 and 1993, while private-sector jobs fell by almost the same amount. Bill Boyd counters that Lister's raw headcount includes part-time university lecturers and emergency hires, and that the more meaningful measure—state employee compensation as a share of gross state product—has held steady at roughly 8 percent for 40 years, well below the national average of around 10 percent. Both men find agreement on the specifics: Hawaii lacks enough police officers, child protective service workers, and classroom teachers, while the Department of Education carries roughly 23,000 employees, fewer than half of them actually in classrooms. Boyd calls for releasing some $600 million in unspent capital construction funds to stimulate the economy; Lister calls for a ground-up "rightsizing" modeled on the military's post-Cold War downsizing. Callers press on the role of public-employee unions, government efficiency, and underinvestment in universities. The sharpest exchange is over what the numbers actually measure and whether the debate itself is being driven by ideology more than objective data.
Transcript
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Companion newspaper commentaries
Commentaries by the guests, published in The Honolulu Advertiser around the broadcast.
