On the Fourth. The Fourth is about celebrating our incredible country, our freedom, our success. But it must also be about reflection.
In the course of human history and governance, democracy is the clear exception. At only 247 years, we are the world’s oldest democracy. Today powerful opponents around the world want any democracy, and especially ours, to fail, and work every minute for that, because it is their greatest threat. Yet most of our world still wants our democracy to overcome criticism and doubt both in and out of our country and continue to lead the advancement of humankind.
This is our choice. Our democracy is resilient but not invincible. It cannot be taken for granted. It takes commitment, tolerance, compromise, inclusion, adjustment, partnership. It doesn’t just happen; it is hard and constant work. The Fourth is a day to reflect on what each of us can, indeed must, do in our own life to strengthen our country and fulfill our promise.
Mid-Year Report. At mid-2023 already, I continue to focus on Capitol Hill and back home on various efforts in each of my three core responsibilities: (1) contributing to national leadership; (2) helping Hawai‘i; and (3) helping my constituents with your own questions and needs.
At the national level, the first several months of the year were consumed by a debt limit crisis that never should have been to start with. I focused as Vice Chair of my House Problem Solvers Caucus and Co-Chair of our Debt/Deficit Working Group on forging a practical solution to avert the crisis and address our unsustainable federal finances: here. While we were successful in the short-term, long-term fiscal stability is clearly unfinished business.
As I commenced my fifth year on our U.S. House Committee on Appropriations, responsible for funding our federal government, I undertook new responsibilities as a member of our Subcommittees on Defense, which oversees our military and intelligence budgets, and Homeland Security, which oversees several key agencies including our Coast Guard. We are well into a difficult Fiscal Year 2024 (October 1, 2023-September 30, 2024) appropriations process which takes much of my time and effort. My website includes periodic releases on my appropriations work including many positive results for our Hawai’i: here.
I also continue to be directly focused on defueling and closing Red Hill and addressing health and other consequences, including funding now over $2 billion to this overall effort. Through a lot of coordination and hard work, it appears that defueling will commence in October of this year and be completed in the first half of next year. This will continue as one of my top priorities throughout this Congress.
I also entered my fifth year on our U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources, responsible for national policy on our endangered resources as well as indigenous peoples including Native Hawaiians. On Natural Resources and otherwise, I continued my special focus on protecting our world’s oceans, and was deeply honored to receive a national leadership award for my work: here.
We continue to face many other major issues in Congress, from ongoing inflation and high living costs to crime, climate change, Ukraine, China, inequality, a fraying social safety net and more, compounded by political division and polarization. For more information on these issues and my efforts, please check out my website at case.house.gov or email me at [email protected].
Hawai‘i Small Business Assistance. Small business is the lifeblood of Hawaii’s economy, and I focus my efforts in Congress on facilitating opportunities and removing obstacles for national and local small businesses. In this we are assisted by various targeted federal and local resources.
To assist our small businesses and assure that they can access available information and resources, I recently hosted a special webinar with three local small business experts: Mark Spain, the Small Business Administration District Director for the State of Hawai‘i (focusing on federal programs generally); Jimmie Collins, the Chief of Planning and Operations at the Hawai‘i State Office of Homeland Security (focusing on cybersecurity); and Chris Rachal, Director of the Minority Business Development Agency Business Center Honolulu (focusing on minority, veterans and women-owned small business programs). I also circulated a summary of small business assistance resources.
Here is more information including a list of those resources and a link to my webinar. For more information, please mail me at [email protected].
