Hawaii senator fighting against Trump administration cuts: ‘It’s a very, very scary time’

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, says he’s in for a fight against cuts by President Donald Trump’s administration.

Hawaii is in the midst of several lawsuits against the Trump administration.

“I’m more on the side of fighting them because there are very few opportunities for compromise,” Schatz told Hawaii News Now.

“It’s a very, very scary time,” he added.

Schatz met with various Hawaii groups Tuesday on impacts from the Trump administration and he spoke with leaders of the Hawaii’s largest hospital system, The Queen’s Health Systems.

Trump has repeatedly promised not to touch Medicaid to achieve a target of $880 billion in federal cuts to reduce the federal deficit, but the Congressional Budget Office has indicated with that amount, Medicaid would need to be slashed.

Cuts to Medicaid would leave more uncompensated care for hospitals often the largest employers in rural areas.

“My advice to all of the providers is to hang tight, to be cautious, but don’t do those cuts before there’s a federal law that mandates those cuts, because it’s not clear to me that they actually have the votes to cut Medicaid, and that’s my job, is to try to make sure they don’t,” said Schatz.

The University of Hawaii announced federal funding cuts increased to $36 million, freezing 48 research programs and impacting 82 federally funded employees.

“This where it’s starting to actually hurt people. In Hawaii, we are losing jobs. We lost some jobs at the National Park Service, at NOAA. A lot of our great federal workers are being punished, and people who do great work with federal grants and so the impacts are very, very real,” said Schatz.

Hawaii News Now asked how many federal workers in Hawaii have lost their jobs.

“It’s in the very small numbers. You’re talking about a couple hundred people, but the challenge is that the cuts that are being contemplated are way, way worse than that,” said Schatz.

Schatz says his office has a spreadsheet of the cuts, but a problem with getting exact counts is that some workers are furloughed, others rely on federal grants while others have been dismissed and then brought back.

He also says communication with federal agencies has been difficult.