As the legislative session winds down, no issue is demanding as much attention, scrutiny and sheer drama as the debate over how — or even if — to come up with more money for the Honolulu rail project.

The drama element became abundantly clear Wednesday when Sen. Lorraine Inouye and Rep. Sylvia Luke engaged in a heated back-and-forth debate about Senate Bill 1183, the measure that will decide whether or not to extend the general excise tax surcharge, thus giving a longer leash to Mayor Kirk Caldwell when it comes to financing rail.

The bill has gone through several iterations. The Senate, under Ways and Means Chair Jill Tokuda, flatly refused initially — rejecting the proposed GET surcharge extension, but offering to eliminate the state’s collection fee (“the skim”), which is currently 10 percent.

Luke oversaw a more generous but still firm offer from the House, which included extending the surcharge for two years as well as cutting the state’s administrative fee to 1 percent.

Most recently, Inouye drafted a version that seemed to be a big fat gift to Caldwell, extending the surcharge for 10 years and sending 80 percent of the revenue to the city for rail. No skin off her nose. She represents District 4 on the Big Island so her constituents won’t be affected by more taxes, whether it’s an increase in the GET or higher property taxes to finish the job.

It’s anyone’s guess what will happen Friday, which is supposed to be the deadline for legislation to clear conference committees.

What is clear is that Tokuda and Luke seem to be the only leaders standing between us and something of a blank check to a failing and flailing rail project. They deserve a round of applause — and perhaps a stiff drink — for standing up to Caldwell and the construction unions and speaking strongly and clearly about the rail project’s utter lack of respect for taxpayers.

Caldwell, after all, has come to the Legislature twice in three years with hat in hand. And on Wednesday, Krishniah Murthy, interim executive director and CEO of the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation, said even Inouye’s proposal would not be enough to complete the rail project.

Caldwell’s approach to accounting, as far as we can tell, seems to be akin to a petulant and irresponsible teenager who keeps going back to his parents for a bailout when he crashes the car.

The assumption by Inouye and others that rail is too big to fail and that the state needs to do whatever it can to help the project is flawed.

Inouye seems ready to indulge him. Now that the future of rail is coming down to the wire, politicians like her are grasping for anything to make the project work.

“As far as we’re concerned,” Inouye said Wednesday, “we are not going to stop the rail. That is the position of the Senate. That we will not stop the rail halfway.”

But as we have argued before, as painful or as embarrassing as it may be, it is never too late to stand up for better government — especially when we’re paying so much for it. Thankfully Tokuda — who has refused to endorse Inouye’s plan — and Luke refuse to settle for Caldwell’s excuses.

After the hearing Wednesday, Tokuda told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that “the public is tired of the lies, and so should the Legislature, but more so the public and the taxpayer. They’re tired of the lies, they’re tired of coming back here and saying ‘Don’t worry, we’ll never be back here again,’ only to be back here one more time to say, ‘OK, we need another extension.’”

We hope Tokuda and Luke double down on this one, because it’s time to call Caldwell and the city’s bluff. The legislative leaders should be emboldened by the recent Star-Advertiser poll showing that the majority of Oahu residents support their position regarding the GET surcharge.

According to the poll, 57 percent of Oahu voters are against extending the surcharge to pay for rail. A whopping 83 percent are against raising property taxes to pay for it — something Caldwell has threatened will be necessary if he doesn’t get everything he wants.

But, like everything else we’ve seen from the rail project so far, such threats are both indicative of the city’s lack of planning and, as Tokuda has pointed out, its inept accounting.

As of Wednesday, Inouye couldn’t even say how much money her proposed surcharge extension would raise. Another startling admission that seems par for the course for a project that has never been big on accountability and again suggests proponents are just pulling numbers out of their, well, back pockets.

At a February hearing, Tokuda told Caldwell, City Council Budget Committee Chair Joey Manahan and Budget and Fiscal Services Deputy Director Gary Kurokawa that they had done a pretty lousy job looking over their own finances. If the city had “taken the time to dig through” their budget, Tokuda said, they would find ways to pay for rail without excessively burdening taxpayers.

“The public and the Legislature,” Luke said more recently, “have lost faith and confidence in their ability to provide an accurate budget estimate and control costs.”

Yep.

Which is all the more reason to resist giving Caldwell and the city a virtual blank check. In addition to the rail project’s ridiculous cost overruns, the city has yet to even present a plan for how it will cover rail’s operating and maintenance costs.

Tokuda and Luke will likely pay a political price for standing up to the industry and city interests that are already so invested in rail. Some have even hinted that Tokuda’s leadership position is at stake and that Tokuda and Luke will face union payback come election time.

But the assumption by Inouye and others that rail is too big to fail and that the state needs to do whatever it can to help the project is flawed. Indeed, it is very likely that Inouye and her ilk will be the ones to pay.

That same Star-Advertiser poll also asked respondents which of the following best represented their opinion on the rail system: 1. It should go to Ala Moana; 2. It should stop at Middle Street; or 3. They should stop construction immediately.

Sixty-four percent said it should go to Ala Moana — which Caldwell, ever the greedy optimist, took to mean full public support for his boondoggle.

“The vast majority of the people of this island, the taxpayers of this island, support building rail all the way to Ala Moana Center — all 20 miles, 21 stations,” he said in the newspaper’s story about the poll.

But as businessman and rail opponent Cliff Slater noted in the story, those opinions about rail exist in a vacuum. The question doesn’t ask if respondents would still support the project going to Ala Moana even if it meant more taxes.

Given the imperfect nature of the question, presented without any context or tax trade-offs, it’s actually quite remarkable that a full quarter of respondents replied that construction should stop immediately.

Inouye and Caldwell might think rail is inevitable, but when you’re already about $5 billion over budget and even the most generous proposal on offer still isn’t good enough, it should be clear to taxpayers that the time for bailouts is long gone.