Hawai‘i Rep. Ed Case spoke out Wednesday against a military funding proposal that, he believes, shortchanges the needs of the state.
At a Wednesday meeting of the House Appropriations Committee, House Representatives discussed a 90-page budget proposal allocating some $469 billion to various military projects and the Department of Veterans Affairs.
But Case and other Democrats on the committee voted against the measure. Case in particular highlighted the bill’s lack of investment in projects in the Indo-Pacific region.
“The Indo-Pacific is, of course, our priority theater,” Case told the committee Wednesday. “We say this all the time … where we are facing a generational challenge with (China) and its allies … And this is where we should be putting our money, from a defense perspective.”
Case said he does not believe the Indo-Pacific is prioritized at all in the proposed budget: only one Indo-Pacific military construction project, a $50 million item for “defense access roads” on Guam, is listed in the proposal.
Case told the committee that Hawai‘i's military facilities require billions of dollars of deferred maintenance projects, urging for the addition of $1 billion for Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, among others.
“And then there is the problem of a continued reluctance, a continued closing of their eyes by the Defense Department of anything that smacks of any kind of base resilience, because they don’t want to talk about the effects of weather on our bases,” Case said.
Despite this, Case did highlight several provisions he supports within the proposal, including the roughly $134 billion allocated to the VA, including $117 billion for veterans medical care, $2 billion for VA construction projects, $970 million for a veteran homelessness program and more.
And the budget does allow some military funds to reach Hawai‘i facilities, including funding for an infrastructure development plan at Pearl Harbor-Hickam to address aging wastewater facilities, funding to assess the capacity of all public shipyards to carry out battle damage repairs and more.
However, the bill also includes provisions prohibiting the VA from providing abortions or abortion counseling, and eliminates Covid-19 vaccination requirements for VA medical personnel, House Democrats note. Opponents have also warned that the proposal will continue a gradual privatization of VA health care, with the budget cutting funds for direct VA care and boosting funds for outside care.
The proposed budget will go to the full House for a future vote.
