Floor Speech on the State Budget

Representative Jon Riki Karamatsu
Floor Speech on House Bill 200, House Draft 1
Wednesday, March 12, 2003

“Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this measure.

In the Governor's Message – signed and dated on February 7, 2003, the Governor cut $11,015,863 to our public schools' funding for fiscal years 2004 and 2005.

However, seventeen days later, on February 24, 2003, on CNN Inside Politics, Governor Lingle was asked whether she cut education to balance the state budget. The Governor responded, “We did not cut education funding at all in the State of Hawaii. It's just what the previous governor proposed as an increase was not realized in the budget that we submitted.”

It is one thing to speak rhetoric on all the promises she wants to do that is not fiscally feasible, but now she is going further by sending lies out to the general public on her cuts to public education.

Despite this, Mr. Speaker, we are pushing the Governor's proposals forward because we want to work with her and will continue to work with her.”