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| December 22, 2020 |
Aloha, Friend! For months and months, both Congress and the Administration have been mired in division and inaction on both our regular annual federal funding cycle and a second COVID-19 emergency assistance package while critical needs throughout our country and Hawai‘i worsened. Last night, we finally passed and the President signed into law a huge $2.3 trillion measure that approves funding for our federal government for the fiscal year already underway and delivers a second round COVID-19 emergency assistance. The measure includes some $1.4 trillion in FY '21 funding across all of the federal government. Among the programs funded are several of special benefit to Hawai‘i which I sought as a member of the U.S. House Committee on Appropriations responsible for federal funding. The measure also includes $900 billion in COVID-19 emergency assistance to continue many of the successful programs from our first $2 trillion-plus CARES Act emergency package enacted way back in March. These include additional assistance to our small businesses, specific assistance to industries especially hard-hit by COVID including travel and tourism, and a further direct stimulus payment to many Americans. The links above are to my two news releases with more details on the measure especially those that will particularly help our Hawai‘i. Despite the unacceptable delay in enacting this measure, its passage is good news at the end of a terrible year. My challenge and commitment now, like with the CARES Act, is to do everything I can to assure that this critical assistance gets to where it is desperately needed throughout Hawai’i as quickly and fully as possible. At the same time, many needs were not met in this measure, even this will not be enough to see our country fully through the public health, economic, social and personal crisis of COVID-19, and we are already focused on developing a third package for consideration early next year. And I am already at work in my Appropriations Committee and otherwise on our Fiscal Year '22 (beginning in '21) federal funding package and how best to continue assistance to our country and Hawai‘i. I have said throughout and say again that the disagreement and delay in D.C. in approving this measure could not be a better demonstration of the chronic dysfunction in our federal government that we simply must overcome. I earnestly hope that the New Year and the new Congress and Administration it will bring will offer us all opportunities to come together far more quickly and fully on not only COVID-19 but the host of other challenges on which we are responsible to lead. With my very best wishes for the Holidays and New Year,
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