Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 12, Number 3, 1 March 1995 — Clinton swings budget axe at Hawaiian education [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Clinton swings budget axe at Hawaiian education

by Jeff Clark Congress will surely cut programs, but President Clinton has gotten the ball rolling by cutting Hawaiian programs in his own budget proposal. Ever since the Republican Party gained control of Congress last November, there has been speculation - by this paper as well as

other media outlets - on whieh and to what degree social programs will be cut. But with the mammoth federal deficit looming, Congress doesn't hold the only budget ax, Education hit hard President Clinton's 1996 budget omits $12 million in Hawaiian programs in the areas of higher

education, family-based education centers, gifted and talented (Nā Pua No'eau), special education, eommunity based learning eenters, curriculum development, and teacher training and recruitment. Native Hawaiian programs are "caught in a jockeying battle between the White House and the Republican Congress," Jennifer Goto, chief of staff in Sen. Daniel

Inouye's Honolulu office, told the state Senate's Hawaiian affairs committee. Goto added, however, that Inouye has been communicating with the White House and is eonfident that Clinton will let stand whatever funding ean be secured from Congress. The Administration's budget document states that the services these programs provide ean be funded through federal grants and other programs that make separate kōkua for Hawaiians "unnecessary and duplicative." While the White House hasn't called for these programs' 1995 monies to be rescinded, Congress is committed to attacking this type of funding, and "it is anyone's guess as to what types and how severe the attacks will be," Goto said. Health. culture fare better The good news is that the Administration has not proposed any cuts to currently funded Hawaiian health programs, whieh include Papa Ola Lōkahi, the Hawaiian health centers on the major islands (whieh Papa Ola Lōkahi oversees), and Native Hawaiian health care scholarships. The Interior Department's budget justification was not released at press time, but Goto said she expects the Administration to request $1.5 million (a cut of just $200,000 from current funding) for the Native Hawaiian Culture

and Arts Program (NHCAP), whieh is administered through Bishop Museum and whieh includes work on the Hawai'iloa eanoe and training in the Hawaiian martial art of lua. Politics in the Legislative branch In the Senate, Goto said Inouye hopes that his longstanding relationships with Sen. Nancy Kassenbaum of Kansas (the new chair of the Committee on Labor and Human Resources) and Sen. Arlen Spector of Pennsylvania (the new chair of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education) will allow him to salvage funds for Hawaiian programs. Funds are expected to be reduced, but not "zeroed-out." The House of Representatives will be a tougher arena, however, as the Republican leadership is not open to discussion or debate in regard to Hawaiian issues, Goto said. She said Inouye will battle for funds in conference committee (the process by whieh differences are settled between the Senate and the House versions of particular bills); the likely result is that programs will be saved but will lose some of their monies. Republicans in the state Legislature will be called upon for kōkua in influencing Republicans in Congress, Goto said, stressing that the Hawaiian people are "not a partisan issue."

While the eyes of Hawai'i are fixed on the voyage of the Hawai'iloa and Hokule'a, many Hawaiians eoniinue to take to the water on their own. Here a paddling team sprints down the Ala Wai Canal during the Ala Wai Challenge, a fundraising event for the Waikīkī Community Center.