The U.S. House of Representatives voted to pass the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act," President Donald Trump Administration's controversial budget reconciliation bill.
With the bill now going to the president's desk — and Trump all but certain to sign it into law — Hawai‘i's elected officials were left Thursday only able to warn of its feared economic impacts.
A joint statement signed by senators Mazie Hirono and Brian Schatz, representatives Ed Case and Jill Tokuda, and Gov. Josh Green, predicted that the bill will cut health care coverage for more than 40,000 Hawai‘i residents, remove access to food assistance programs for more than 20,000 families, while also raising the national debt by $3.3 trillion.
“While it won’t be easy to stop all the damage from these cuts, we’re moving quickly to protect our communities," the joint statement read. "Over the next few weeks, we’ll be meeting with state and local officials, community partners, and service providers to assess the fiscal impact on Hawai‘i and develop operational plans to blunt the harm. That includes coordinating resources, setting local priorities, and making sure the most vulnerable aren’t left without support. These next few years won’t be easy, but we are mobilizing now to respond, protect our people, and make sure Hawai‘i can weather what’s coming.”
Case issued his own separate statement, saying the measure "fails miserably" as policy and called it "a tragic, cruel measure that so deeply benefits so few so well at the expense of so many so severely."
“It guts our bedrock efforts to provide all Americans with affordable quality nutrition, health care, housing and other life basics, and tens of millions of Americans will be far worse off and even die as a result," Case's statement read. "It reverses generations of effort to convert to clean renewable energy despite the sheer folly of doubling down on fossil fuels. It hides special interest provisions in its almost-thousand pages that reflect the worst of insider Washington. It makes life today and into the next generation harder, not easier, for most of us."
Trump has repeatedly signaled his intention to sign the bill on July 4.
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