Political Quotes

“I thank my colleague for introducing this amendment of which I am a proud cosponsor. This amendment provides additional funding for the Native American CDFI Assistance Program, also known as NACA, which supports critical economic development in Native communities like mine in Hawaii, those in Alaska, and communities all across the country which already face significant barriers to accessing financial mainstream services and capital. NACA accounts for a small portion of the CDFIs, but it provides significant support to Native CDFIs, including Native Hawaii organizations in my home State of Hawaii. Of the $22.7 million in CDFI awards made to Hawaii since the fund was launched, 41 percent of total dollars awarded came from this NACA Program. It has funded organizations like the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement, which supports Native Hawaiian communities with homeownership counseling and mortgage loans, small business access to capital, and loans to farmers and ranchers. While the NACA Program is unable to meet the demand by qualified Native CDFIs at its current funding level, a cut to NACA in FY 2019 would be especially devastating to our Nation's impoverished and underserved Native communities. I urge my colleagues to join my colleague from Hawaii, Representative Colleen Hanabusa, and me to support this noncontroversial, bipartisan amendment to restore funding to NACA.…”