Aloha, Friend.
As we enjoy Memorial Day weekend and the beginning of summer, I join in remembering and reflecting on our fallen, update you on our debt limit debate, and invite you to join me and a panel of experts in my small business assistance workshop live online Tuesday, May 30th at 10:30am Hawai‘i time.
Memorial Day. This Monday, unless I have already returned to Capitol Hill to vote on a resolution of our debt ceiling crisis, I will join fellow elected leaders and our military, veterans and community at Memorial Day services at our Hawai‘i State Veterans Cemetery in Kane’ohe. We will remember again the millions of U.S. military service deaths throughout our history, and reflect again on their ultimate sacrifice and the true costs of our freedom. We have honored them on this, their day since 1868, and we must continue to do so as fellow citizens as long as our country exists.
But Memorial Day is about much more than this; it must also be a day of recommitment, to caring for our fallen’s ‘ohana, and to striving for the peace that saves lives in every way possible. This takes our collective action, starting with our federal government. In that spirit, I share with you my Memorial Day message to our veterans and others on my actions on Capitol Hill and my ongoing offer of assistance here.
Debt Limit. In my May 8th e-newsletter here, I explained the debt ceiling and why it is so important, and described my efforts to forge the best path forward to solve the immediate crisis and our rapidly deteriorating federal finances. As I write you, the President and top Republican and Democratic congressional leaders look to be completing negotiations on a package that can actually pass a deeply divided Congress.
I am hopeful that this will be completed and that my colleagues and I will be called back to D.C. in the next few days to approve a package before the current June 5th deadline to avoid a default on our national debt. In this divided government, where there are widely differing views on how to address our federal finances and the debt ceiling, the reality is that it will take a compromise measure with which nobody will fully agree. But more frustrating is that we have not overcome distrustful polarization, cut to the chase and solved the issue much earlier, rather than unnecessarily heighten anxiety and rhetoric and allow it to balloon into a crisis. It is hard enough without all that.
Small Business. May is National Small Business Month, and our Hawai‘i, with 135,000 small businesses, 99% of all Hawai‘i businesses, and 275,000 employees, is Small Business Country. Yet anyone who has ever owned, operated or worked at our small businesses knows it’s especially hard in Hawai‘i, with high costs, regulation and other challenges. That’s why small business is one of my top areas of focus in Congress, where I work for fair taxation and regulation and federal programs and other initiatives to assist our nation’s small businesses generally, as well as expand opportunities for Hawaii’s small businesses with our often unique products, services and markets, federal government contracting especially our military, high rates of veteran, women and minority-owned businesses and others.
To assist further, I’m hosting another Facebook Live webinar on Hawai‘i Small Business Assistance this Tuesday, May 30, 10:30am-12:00pm, Hawai‘i time. My special guests are: Mark Spain, U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA)/Hawai‘i-Pacific Islands District Director (especially on SBA assistance overall), Jimmie Collins, Hawai‘i State Office of Homeland Security Chief of Planning and Operations (especially on small business cybersecurity protection), and Chris Rachal, Honolulu Minority Business Development Agency Director (especially on minority, women and veteran-owned small business assistance).
Please join us then here. Questions in advance to [email protected] (add Question for Small Business Workshop in the subject line), or online at our event, or call my district office at (808-650-6688).
As always, I deeply appreciate your consideration and assistance as we all work to find the best way forward for our country and Hawai’i. For more information on my efforts, please visit my website at case.house.gov. If I can help you and yours with your own questions and needs, email us at [email protected], or call us at (808) 650-6688.
My staff and I wish you and yours only the best this Memorial Day weekend.
Be safe and be well.
