As the state weighs its options in light of gloomy budget forecasts, its experiment with high-technology tax credits is shaping up as a ripe target for cuts.

Gov. Linda Lingle said last week that her administration believes that Act 221/215, which enable the credits, need to be re-examined.

She has a good point. With the potential of a $900 million budget gap over the next three years, Lingle is right to review a policy that provided $100 million in tax credits in 2006 alone, and $295 million since 1999. But simply eliminating the tax credits, perhaps tempting as an easy cost-cutting measure, would be a mistake.

Preliminary evidence indicates that the credits do encourage high-tech companies to do business here. The number of full-time workers rose by 87 to a total of 1,450 between 2006 and 2007, and the number of part-timers rose as well. Industry boosters say the tax incentives attracted $1.2 billion in investments between 2002 and 2007. They believe the Oct. 1 release of a new study for the Hawaii Science and Technology Council will strongly bolster their case.

Clean high-tech is also one of the pillars of Lingle's long-term strategy to diversify the economy and to ease our dependence on tourism, construction and the military.

With the tourism industry facing a serious decline in visitors, the vulnerabilities of depending too heavily on our mature sectors are apparent.

Certainly, state policy-makers need to make careful judgments about this complex issue. The full cost-to-benefit ratio of the technology tax credits won't be known for some time. And whether they will help establish a permanent, robust high-tech sector that can thrive without a continual infusion of tax credits remains uncertain.

But at this critical time, state policymakers need to plan for the future as well as deal with the state's immediate fiscal problems. A high-tech Hawai'i continues to be a promising goal.