WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Angus King (I-Maine) shared a video message on social media in which he emphasized the negative impact the government shutdown is having on people across Maine, including U.S. Coast Guard personnel and families. Senator King has repeatedly called to reopen the government to fulfill its obligations to federal workers who are furloughed or working without pay and to ensure businesses, contractors, and people who rely on federal government agencies can access the services they need. Senator King’s video can be viewed HERE.

“As you no doubt know, we’re in the fourth week of a completely unnecessary, and I believe irresponsible, shutdown of a portion of the United States government,” said Senator King. “…Last week people started to miss payroll, they missed their paychecks. The problem is, you may miss your paycheck but the bills don’t stop; the rent, food, automobile payments, insurance, healthcare. All those bills keep coming even though your income is stopped. It’s impacting real people. I got an email just the other day from Kristen Miale, the head of the Good Shepherd Food Bank – a wonderful organization in Maine, which provides food for thousands of Maine people who would otherwise go hungry.

“Now, her email wasn’t about Good Shepherd, it was about an experience she had volunteering in a local food bank. Now her experience was a mom and dad came in with their baby needing food, they were a little sheepish, they didn’t know how this was all going to work and it turned out it made a huge difference for them that week.  The end of the story is, the dad worked for the United States Coast Guard. We should not have Coast Guard personnel, and men and women, having to go to food banks to feed their families. It’s just irresponsible and there’s no reason for it we can’t sit down and negotiate this thing, we can work out what the wall arrangement should be and what should be the best solution to the border security question, but we shouldn’t be taking food out of people’s mouths. And you take that case of that Coast Guard family and multiply it by thousands and literally by tens and hundreds of thousands of people across the country and you get a picture of what’s really going on here…

“I’m very hopeful that good sense will prevail, that we can find a way out of this, and that we can find a solution in the next few days. That will make those people whole who have really borne the brunt of this through no fault of their own so thanks for listening, and I hope you’ll join me in urging all of my colleagues and the President to find a solution to this so we can go back to serving our constituents, and our people, as we should.”

Last week, Senator King spoke on the Senate floor to voice concern for the Maine people hurt by the government shutdown, and the Senate passed the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act, bipartisan legislation that Senator King cosponsored to protect federal and other government workers impacted during the shutdown. Senator King also joined 16 of his colleagues in a letter to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin to raise concerns regarding the impact of the government shutdown on services to taxpayers at the beginning of the first filing season under the new tax code, and wrote a letter to Department of the Interior Acting Secretary David Bernhardt to underscore the adverse effects the 21 day-old partial government shutdown is having on the National Parks System.