HONOLULU (KHON2) — The Hawaii delegation was in the middle of the action over in D.C., with Representative Jill Tokuda and Representative Ed Case involved in the House vote.
They’re both against President Donald Trump’s ‘big beautiful bill,’ and said it came back worse after going through the Senate.
Case is voting ‘no’ and said the bill could leave Hawaii picking up the pieces.
“We’ve known that this was a possibility for months and months. I have talked at length with Gov. Green, my state legislative counterparts, Mayor Blangiardi, and others about how this will affect our own ability to demonstrate the values of equality and opportunity, compassion, tolerance that I think are foremost and in all of our minds.”
“And the reality is that if my colleagues and the President take this country in a direction that is this radically different, I believe, from basic values that we follow in Hawaii, where we take care of each other for starters, and where we do try to provide opportunity across the board for starters, then obviously Hawaii is going to have to do a lot of it ourselves, and that’s fair,” he explained.
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“Maybe Hawaii should, along with other states, do more in various areas, but many of these programs have to be administered at a national level. Medicaid has to be a national program. It cannot be isolated to one state and not to another state. That’s not the way to do it,” said Case.