WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Angus King (I-Maine), a member of the Senate Budget Committee, released the following statement today after voting in favor of the motion to proceed to a conference on the budget with the U.S. House of Representatives:

“While I do not support the Senate budget, I do support making this institution work,” Senator King said. “If there’s a silver-lining, it’s that the Senate budget includes an amendment I cosponsored that paves the path towards a more sensible and balanced budget. I hope members of the conference committee will recognize the value in solving our country’s fiscal problems by starting with fixing sequestration.”

In late March, Senator King voted against the Senate budget resolution, criticizing its failure to fix sequestration and its one-sided approach to the nation’s fiscal problems. Senator King, however, did praise the budget’s inclusion of a bipartisan amendment he cosponsored that would pave a legislative path for adopting a more sensible budget that would promote economic growth and reduce the debt and deficit by striking an appropriate balance between spending reductions and revenue increases.

The amendment creates an opportunity for future legislation to provide sequester relief to both defense and non-defense discretionary programs, which is a much more realistic alternative to the Senate budget passed last month which maintains sequester level spending reductions for defense programs and contains deep cuts to domestic programs.

Senator King has been a strong advocate of a balanced approach – replacing sequestration with more targeted cuts and a close review of tax loopholes to raise revenues while also protecting the beneficiaries of important programs.

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