The more I hear and read Governor Lingle’s demand for state worker furloughs, and hear reports by those who have been dealing (or trying to deal) with her on the budget issue, the more I have come to believe that she is no longer simply seeking a budgetary solution but instead has decided to hijack the budget process for her own increasingly conservative political goals.

Perhaps those months touring with the McCain campaign has “Palin-ized” the governor. Perhaps she’s trying to boost herself within the GOP’s conservative ranks while looking ahead to a role in the 2012 presidential race at a national level. In any case, I believe the union leaders who say she has not negotiated, will not compromise, and is unwilling to look at any evidence regarding the impact of her hastily concocted furlough plan.

Lingle’s posture reminds me a lot of a situation here in Kaaawa involving a landowner who divided his lot in half, then built two houses served by a common driveway from the road below. At some point he decided that the house on the upper side of the lot would be better if it were accessed from a road above, although that involved some very tricky engineering.

Fast forward to the present, where a dispute over the construction of a driveway and retaining wall for that upper-level access has spilled into court.

The landowner’s attorneys argue that the contested retaining wall was absolutely “necessary” to gain access from the lot to the street, ignoring the fact that an equally functional access is available to the lower road via the shared driveway below, a solution which has the added advantage of avoiding the engineering problems, one of which is the extreme entry angle that would deter most people from using the upper driveway.

In this case, “necessary” is the proper term only in relation to the arbitrary goal of accessing the new house from the upper road, not for the more universal goal of keeping the house from being landlocked.

Yesterday, Lingle said:

“This is not something I want to do. It’s something I have to do in order to balance the state budget and to close this unprecedented budget gap that we face,” Lingle said at a news conference at the state Capitol.

In fact, as she makes clear in almost the same breath, she isn’t driven by the budget gap. Instead, the budget gap presents an opportunity for an attempt to slash unionized employees’ wages and benefits, even if that contributes to the budget gap.

Take the case of workers paid through federal or private contracts and grants, money that cannot be used to cut the budget deficit.

This week, Lingle flatly rejected advice from federal officials regarding federally-funded positions.

In a letter to the Social Security commissioner, the governor wrote that her decision to furlough all state workers “recognized that employees working side-by-side, whether their paychecks come from federal funds, state funds, special funds, or other taxpayer resources, should be treated in the same, even-handed manner.”

Yesterday, Lingle said the state would address the loss of federal funds by further depleting state resources to get those tasks done, if necessary.

Lingle also dismissed warnings from the federal Social Security Administration that the state could lose $1.9 million in federal money and about 3,000 Social Security claims could be delayed over two years if the governor furloughs federally funded disability screeners. Lingle said the state has the authority to hire more disability screeners and would put additional resources into the program if workload demand increases.

So if your goal is really eliminating the budget deficit, no rational person would risk losing federal funds by taking actions that save no money and actually will cost more in the long run because we’ll have to pay for the same work out of our depleted state coffers.

And the nation-leading furlough demand will compound the problems in Hawaii’s economy by taking a toll on this large part of the middle class which will be multiplied as it reverberates through the economy, and reducing government services when they are actually needed most.

It all only makes sense if Lingle’s “real” goal is not a matter of budget but a matter of politics.

I think there is a strong case to be made for using a small increase in the general excise tax to fill part of the budget gap.

Raising the GET by one-half percent in Honolulu has generated an average of $13.6 million per month during the first nine months of this fiscal year, a period during which the world economy was melting down. Even at $13 million per month, over a full year it would bring in 156 million.

Honolulu accounts for 70% of GET collections statewide, according to state figures, so a half-percent increase statewide could be expected to generate $222.8 million annually. Over a two-year budget period, that would $445 million, if my quick math is close to correct.

The advantages of the GET were spelled out by the last State Tax Review Commission, which found it to be efficient because it is very broad based. It also has the advantage of having a large share (some 38%, if I recall correctly) “exported” to visitors, many of whom are used to paying much higher sales taxes back home.

And rhetoric aside, the half-percent increase for rail transit in Honolulu has been absorbed relatively easily and without causing upheavals.

So imagine a solution that increases GET statewide for a limited period, perhaps the next two years. My back-of-the-envelope estimate is that a one-quarter percent increase could be expected to raise $222 million during the two year period, while a 3/8 percent increase would generate $334 million.

Add to that perhaps one day per month furloughs, which presumably would save one-third of what Lingle currently projects, or another $229 million.

That’s a total of $451 to $563 million. It wouldn’t balance the budget, but it certainly gets within striking distance and without the massive and unknown repercussions of the governor’s furlough plan. And I’m sure legislators and the unions have additional ideas if the governor would simply negotiate honestly and in good faith.

But what about the possibility of real negotiations?

One public employee union leader told me last night that he has seen a dramatic change in the governor over the past year, a political shift to the hard right during and after the presidential campaign. In his view, she is now simply refusing to negotiate and no longer includes any form of “compromise” in her political agenda. This from a person whose union endorsed Lingle in the past.