{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.king.senate.gov/newsroom/article/maine-sen-king-offers-to-be-bridge-between-parties", "Maine Sen. King offers to be bridge between parties", "2013-10-17", "2013", "2013-10", "Independent", "House", "ME", "Angus King", "K000383", "www.king.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "Maine Sen. King offers to be bridge between parties\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\r\n                \r\n                He calls the shutdown \u2018ridiculous and totally unnecessary.\u2019\r\n                \r\n            \r\n            \r\n            \r\n                \r\n                    By:\u00a0\r\n                    Tom Bell\r\n                \r\n            \r\n            \r\n                \r\n                \r\n                \r\n            Thursday, October 17, 2013\r\n            \n\t\n\r\n            \r\n            Independent U.S. Sen. Angus King of Maine said Thursday that he will try to bring Democrats and Republicans together in the coming weeks to develop a budget agreement that gets the nation\u2019s debt under control.\r\nI hope I can be a bridge,\u201d said King, who was appointed late Wednesday to a special bipartisan committee that will have the task of finding ways to reduce the federal deficit and boost the economy.\r\nThe committee, a product of this week\u2019s deal to reopen the federal government and avert a potential default, has been given a mid-December deadline to come up with a working agreement.\r\nKing was highly critical of Congress on Thursday while speaking at the University of Southern Maine in Portland as part of an eight-week speaker series focused on how politics have changed in Maine and the nation.\r\nKing said the recent crisis, which led to a 16-day shutdown of the federal government and nearly caused the United States to run out of enough cash to pay its bills, was \u201cridiculous and totally unnecessary.\u201d\r\nHe said the crisis was a product of a politically polarized environment that has become dominated by money.\r\nFor some House Republicans, shutting down the government was not just a threat but a desired outcome, King said. \u201cThey don\u2019t want to govern.\u201d\r\nThe system of checks and balances established by the U.S. Constitution has worked well for the nation because there has been common interest in providing an effective government, King said. But when a group of representatives isn\u2019t interested in governing, \u201cit\u2019s ridiculously easy to screw up the system.\u201d\r\nKing said it\u2019s harder to reach compromises in Washington now because senators and representatives don\u2019t know each other personally, as they did in the past, when they would attend the same parties.\r\nHe said most of them return to their home states every weekend and spend much of their time raising money for the next election.\r\nKing also blamed the \u201cbalkanized\u201d news media, which causes people to get news from partisan outlets. \u201cWe are living in an alternative-reality universe where we don\u2019t share the facts,\u201d he said.\r\nRegarding the budget deficit, King said discretionary portions of the federal budget are under control, such as spending by agencies and the military. The problem, he said, is that increasing health care costs are making entitlement programs such as Medicare and Medicaid unsustainable. Also, health care costs for federal workers and retirees keep rising, he said.\r\nThey key to reducing the federal deficit, he said, is to find ways to lower the cost of health care \u2013 not just shift costs.\r\nThe Maine Public Broadcasting Network will broadcast a recording of King\u2019s speech on its radio network at 1 p.m. Wednesday.", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.king.senate.gov/newsroom/article/maine-sen-king-offers-to-be-bridge-between-parties"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.6558170318603516, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}