WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, as Senate Republicans unveiled a budget containing deep spending cuts, U.S. Senator Angus King (I-Maine), a member of the Senate Budget Committee, challenged his colleagues to pursue a compromise budget that appropriately balances spending reductions with revenue increases and works to curb rising healthcare costs.

“We can’t get out of the hole with one answer. There is no silver bullet. Cuts, by themselves, are not the way we’re going to get where we want to get. A friend of mine in Maine used to say there’s rarely a silver bullet, [but] there’s often silver buckshot – a multiplicity of solutions that together will get you where you want to go,” Senator King said. “And my only problem with your budget, Mr. Chairman, is that you focus on one aspect, one part of what amounts to a total five trillion dollar budget – six trillion dollars if you include tax expenditures – you’re really focused on one very small part of that for the cuts and I just don’t think that’s is how we’re going to get there.…I hope we can try to find an approach that can lead us toward a balanced budget – but do it in such a way that will help us to grow the economy and strengthen this country in terms of all the people that have a contribution to make and a role to play in our society.”

Senator King criticized the budget unveiled by Republicans on the Committee today for focusing exclusively on spending reductions, which, as he noted, ignore the importance of investments in driving economic growth. Instead, he  advocated for a combination of approaches including reducing expenditures, raising revenues, growing the economy through investment, and gaining a better handle on health care costs as the better way to pass a budget that achieves economic growth while reducing the debt and deficit in a balanced and sensible manner.

He also continued to speak out against the Budget Control Act and its automatic spending reductions, both of which the budget introduced today adheres to, reminding his colleagues that the spending caps were originally intended to be such a bad idea that Congress would avoid them. Senator King has been a strong advocate of replacing sequestration with more targeted cuts and a close review of tax loopholes. He was a member of the Budget Committee that last Congress struck a deal to temporary relieve the spending caps.

The Senate Budget Committee today held a meeting of its members to begin the consideration of a concurrent budget resolution for Fiscal Year 2016. Yesterday, House Republicans unveiled a budget proposal, which also contains deep spending cuts to domestic programs.

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