Your Tax Dollars Ticking Away

You can watch your Hawai’i state tax dollars tick away in real time at www.grassrootinstitute.org. The Web site, run by a local government watchdog think tank called the Grass Root Institute, bases its Hawai’i State Spend-O-Meter on the state’s current 2005-2006 fiscal year—by the end of which, on June 30, 2006, the state will have spent $9.654 billion dollars.

The Spend-O-Meter calculates the spending as if it occurred at a steady rate of $306.13 per second, but cautions that it "is not designed to reflect actual spending, but projected spending based on the approved budget."

The site also has Spend-O-Meters for Honolulu, Maui, Hawai’i and Kaua’i county budgets.