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 â and Trump all but certain to sign it into law â Hawaiâi'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 Hawaiâi residents, remove access to food assistance programs for more than 20,000 families, while also raising the national debt by $3.3 trillion.
âWhile it wonât be easy to stop all the damage from these cuts, weâre moving quickly to protect our communities," the joint statement read. "Over the next few weeks, weâll be meeting with state and local officials, community partners, and service providers to assess the fiscal impact on Hawaiâi and develop operational plans to blunt the harm. That includes coordinating resources, setting local priorities, and making sure the most vulnerable arenât left without support. These next few years wonât be easy, but we are mobilizing now to respond, protect our people, and make sure Hawaiâi can weather whatâs coming.â
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."
âIt 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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