The battle between Republican Gov. Linda Lingle and Democrats in the state Legislature over whether we should use taxes to help us out of our current economic morass is a bit more than the usual partisan fight over tax/no tax that tends to divide the two parties.

In some ways, this is a form of class warfare, played out theatrically at the Capitol and on the public stage.

Lingle, hewing close to the standard Republican credo, says she does not support "taxing our way out of this economic crisis." And she has a point. When times are tough, the last thing anyone wants is to cough up a few more bucks to government when the mortgage is waiting.

Small businesses, particularly, are working on the kind of margin that makes any kind of tax increase a major headache.

So Lingle has taken a strong stand against any and all tax hikes, including the $1-a-barrel increase in imported-oil taxes that would produce millions for programs the governor generally favors. She staged a huge dog-and-pony show at the Capitol to publicly redstamp veto a series of tax hikes approved by lawmakers.

No problem, say the majority Democrats. They either have overturned or will override Lingle's tax vetoes. What bears looking at is where lawmakers chose to impose new taxes. They focused on groups and segments of the economy where the chance of political fallout was minimal.

If you have to make someone mad — and believe it, any tax increase makes someone mad — then you want to target groups that are unlikely to impose severe sanctions at the polls. So who did the Legislature target this year?

The rich (both through higher income taxes on high wealth families and through high real estate, or conveyance taxes, on multimillion-dollar home sales). The new top marginal income tax rate in Hawai'i will move to 11 percent on income over $200,000, by some accounts the highest such rate in the United States.

To turn a phrase on its head, the rich are just like you and me; they just have more money and — in this case — there are not enough of them to make a huge political difference.

Lawmakers also increased the transient accommodation tax, known as "the hotel tax" to most people. Again, the visitor industry howled, but experience has shown that this is a very elastic tax. That is, increases in the surcharge on visitors seem to have little direct impact on the number of people who come here. Plus, of course, they don't vote.

Finally, the Legislature increased the most elastic tax of all, on cigarettes. Pity our poor smokers. No one loves them very much these days and even Lingle is disinclined to veto this particular tax hike.

By vetoing taxes on the rich and on tourists, Lingle has drawn a clear class line in the sand. By insisting on overriding those vetoes, Democrats in the Legislature have done the same.

It will be interesting to see how this political drama plays out in the next election cycle, in 2010. Democrats hold the populist high ground on this one. But Lingle and her Republican colleagues have the argument that says you can never tax yourself out of an economic slump.

Expect these themes to resonate in the election season about to begin.