Well for starters Hawaii, in case you haven't noticed sits in the middle of the Pacific, which again if you haven't noticed has a very high cost of living. If you want to blame that on politics, go for it! I tend to be smarter and blame the cost to ship goods here as a pretty logical answer to start with! As far as Hawaii ever being a "tax free State", it would never survive but my advice to you if you are so stuck on this is to move to one of those States; no one one here would even miss you. I know I sure wouldn't!!!