WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Angus King (I-ME) today urged his colleagues to break through the gridlock and political stalemate that is preventing Congress from performing its most basic functions, including passing a budget.

“This is not a speech about subject matter, it's not about global climate change or employment or the minimum wage or healthcare, but it's about whether or not this institution can function in order to confront any of those problems,” said Senator King.

“Statistically, I'm told, this is the least productive Congress in American history thus far. No budget in four years, which, a budget is the basic function of any government. I understand there's been one appropriation bill out of 48 in the last several years, and the result has been a complete and total loss of confidence from the public. And that has significance. That is important because in our economy confidence is the mainspring. This is not an academic concern. I am not giving a lecture about civics. The lack of functionality of this institution is damaging the country.”

“So what do we do? We have to do something, and that brings me back to where I began – at the budget conference. This budget conference is very important. This isn't one of many conferences that are going on, this is a, I don't want to say a last chance, but it is one of our last chances to show the American people we can govern. It's almost less important what's in the deal than that there be a deal. That the parties show that they can come together, that they can solve a problem…the headline, "Congress passes a budget which President signs" would electrify the country. It would be the most positive thing we could possibly do for the economy.”

Watch Senator King’s full remarks below.

 To download broadcast-quality video, click here, and to download broadcast quality audio, click here. The full text of Senator King’s remarks, as prepared for the Congressional Record, is below:

“Madam President, I rise this morning in high hopes, but with deep concern. The high hopes are that a budget conference, at long last, is taking place: that representatives of the Senate and the House are meeting together, met last week, and I know have been meeting informally this week, in order to try to achieve, finally, a budget for this fiscal year.

“My concern is that it's been so hard to get here. That it's been so difficult and that we are now in a process where we don't seem to be able to function. I'm worried about the country. I'm worried about whether we are going to be able to address our problems. This is not a speech about subject matter, it's not about global climate change or employment or the minimum wage or healthcare, but it's about whether or not this institution can function in order to confront any of those problems.

“When I was a young man there was a famous book, it was kind of a cult favorite, called "Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me". And sometimes I feel that that's where we are here. This institution has been so compromised in its ability to function that it's become the norm, and people have low expectations, even people who are here. I remember being on the floor a few months ago when one of the Senators stood up and said, "This amendment should be subject to the normal 60 vote requirement." And my head snapped back because there's no such thing as a "normal" 60 vote requirement. For 200 years we did not function with a "normal" 60 vote requirement, that has become a rather new innovation. And I'm not going to talk about the filibuster or the 60 vote requirement, but the idea that this Senator asserted it was normal indicates a change in attitude about the way this place functions.

“Another example is that, to my knowledge, the Conference Committees that are going on now on the budget and on the Farm Bill, I believe are the first two Conference Committees convened in this entire year. I worked here as a staff-member 40 years ago, and remember going to Conference Committees rather frequently: walking through the Capitol with my boss and going to the meetings, and seeing the Senators and the Congressmen sit down and argue and disagree and agree and compromise and reach settlements on legislation, on a fairly regular basis. Now it's cause for celebration. It took a government shutdown, in effect, to produce a simple Conference Committee.

“Statistically, I'm told, this is the least productive Congress in American history thus far. No budget in four years, which, a budget is the basic function of any government. I understand there's been one appropriation bill out of 48 in the last several years, and the result has been a complete and total loss of confidence from the public. And that has significance. That is important because in our economy confidence is the mainspring. This is not an academic concern. I am not giving a lecture about civics. The lack of functionality of this institution is damaging the country.

“We know for example from studies that just the shutdown cost our economy 24 billion dollars. For no purpose that I could discern. But there's an untold broader cost. The reality is that two thirds of the American economy is driven by consumer spending, and consumer spending is driven by confidence. By the millions of individual decisions that people make in their daily lives based on how they feel about their future, how they feel about their country, how they feel about their personal situation. And part of that is whether they feel that they have representatives in Washington that are representing their interests and in fact are capable of serving the needs of the country.

“Ironically, this lack of confidence that's generated by events like the shutdown, harms the economy and therefore makes the deficit worse. The very best way to solve the deficit problem isn't necessarily taxes or cuts, it's growth in the economy. If the economy grows, the deficit shrinks. That was part of what happens in the late 90's, the last time we had a budget surplus, because the economy was roaring along.

“It's also about national security. I was provoked to come to the floor today by reading a speech made recently by Robert Gates, one of our most distinguished public servants, former Secretary of Defense, and he talked about the defense posture of the country and the national security situation, and here's what he said toward the end of his speech, "Let me close with a word about what I now regard as the biggest threat to national security. The biggest threat to U.S. national security: the political dysfunction within the 2 square miles of Washington, D.C., encompassing the White House and Capitol Hill."

“Those are strong words, Madam President. He's not talking about Al Qaeda, he's not talking about a resurgent China, he's not talking about a world threat of terrorism, he's talking about us as the greatest threat to U.S. national security. He went on to say, "American politics has always been shrill and an ugly business going back to the Founding Fathers, but as a result of several polarizing trends we now have, it's lost the ability to execute even the basic functions of government, much less solve the most difficult and divisive problems facing this country."

“Basic functions of government: passing a budget, operating the government itself, paying our bills. The basic functions of government. Secretary Gates said, "Looking ahead it's unrealistic to expect partisanship to disappear or even dissipate, but when push comes to shove, when the future of our country is at stake, ideological zeal and short-term political calculation on the part of both Republicans and Democrats must yield to patriotism and the long-term national interest."

“This lack of functionality, this chaos if you will, also affects us internationally. Tom Friedman this weekend had a column, the title I thought was rather provocative. It was, "Calling America: Hello? Hello? Hello?"

‘"Few Americans," Friedman says, "are aware of how much America has lost in this recent episode of bringing the American economy to the edge of a cliff. People always looked up to America,” he quotes a citizen of Singapore, “’People have always looked up to America as the best-run country, the most reasonable, the most sensible, and now people are asking, can America manage itself, and what are the implications for the rest of the world?””

“Madam President, our Constitution has always been based on two somewhat competing principles in tension with each other. One is the fundamental purpose of the Constitution, which is to create an effective government. The Constitution was not what ran this country immediately after the American Revolution, we experimented with something called the Articles of Confederation, and it didn't work. And the chaos and the economic problems of that period is what led the Framers to draft the Constitution in that blessed summer of 1787.

“But the one principle in the Constitution is right in the preamble: to form a more perfect union, to establish justice, to provide for the common defense, to insure domestic tranquility, and promote the general welfare. That's government. At the same time the Framers were concerned about the ancient question of who will guard the guardians. How do we control the government we've just created, in order to protect ourselves from its own abuse? And they built this elaborate system of checks and balances. They'd never heard of Rube Goldberg in 1787, but if they had that's what they did. They created an elaborate, cumbersome, slow system. They wanted it to be that way in order to curb the excesses of the government that they had created. They wanted it to be slow and cumbersome, and they succeeded beyond their wildest imagination.

“Those two principles, government and checks and balances, as I say are in tension in the Constitution. The problem is, Madam President, we seem to have reached a moment in time where the governing part has been taken away and all we have left are checks and balances, and we have a system that is ridiculously easy to monkey wrench if you don't have the basic commitment to governing. And that's the problem that we face today.

“So what do we do? We have to do something, and that brings me back to where I began – at the budget conference. This budget conference is very important. This isn't one of many conferences that are going on, this is a, I don't want to say a last chance, but it is one of our last chances to show the American people we can govern. It's almost less important what's in the deal than that there be a deal. That the parties show that they can come together, that they can solve a problem, just the fact that the headline, "Congress passes a budget which President signs" would electrify the country. It would be the most positive thing we could possibly do for the economy.

“By the same token, a headline that says, "Congress once more fails to act" will be one more weight on the future of the country. One more stone in the pile of evidence that we can no longer function, that this system that has served us so well for so long, can no longer serve us as it must.

“What do we do to get there? As I say we do something. And I hope and pray and urge and support the Chair of the Budget Committee, the House Chair of the Budget Committee, the members of that Conference, to try to find solutions, that won't make everybody happy by definition, but at least we'll show that we're able to do the most basic function of governing. How do we get there? We listen. We have a company in Maine that has a sign on the wall that I think we ought to put in this room. It says, "All of us are always smarter than any of us." The wisdom of the group, there's tremendous experience and wisdom in this institution. If we can bring that to bear, but it doesn't work if people aren't listening. If people say, "I know the answer. I have all the results. I don't need to listen. I don't have anything to learn." We'll never get there, Madam President, if that's the idea.

“When people say to you, "I'm not going to compromise," what they are really saying is, "I have all the answers. I'm entirely right." And I've never known anyone that was entirely right. So we need to listen. Yes, we need to compromise. And we need to remind ourselves of our pretty simple oath that we take. The oath that we take when we come into this place is to the Constitution of the United States. It's not to a political party, it's not to an ideology, it's not to a particular issue no matter how precious to us or our constituents. It's an oath to the Constitution of the United States. I hope and pray that if we can hold to that, and remind ourselves of why we're here and the heavy weight of responsibility that we bear, we can find solutions, we can solve problems, we can begin to rebuild the trust that the American people want to have in their government, if we can only prove ourselves worthy of it.

“It is a heavy responsibility, Madam President. It is one I believe that we can meet, and do so with honor and good faith to that oath that we all took.

“Thank you, I yield the floor.”

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