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 enables the credits, needs 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 policymakers 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.