PORTLAND, Maine — Federal debt commission co-chairman Erskine Bowles told a Portland audience Sunday that independent U.S. Senate candidate and former Maine Gov. Angus King would bring to Congress the political will to cut spending and close tax loopholes in order to reduce the national deficit.
The campaign of Republican Charlie Summers, who has been polling a distant second in the Senate race behind King, issued a statement Sunday afternoon criticizing King’s financial strategies as governor and describing the independent as the wrong candidate to attack the federal debt.
Bowles, a Democrat who worked as President Bill Clinton’s chief of staff, said he has been promoting in Congress the debt-lowering plan he co-authored in 2010 with Republican commission co-chairman Alan Simpson. He said he now has garnered support from 47 senators across both parties behind the scenes and hopes legislation implementing parts of the strategy can be adopted in the upcoming session.
But he acknowledged that the plan, which would reduce the federal deficit by $4 trillion over the next 10 years, would be tough for politicians to publicly support. Many Democrats have argued against the cuts to social welfare programs — the plan proposes $3 trillion in spending cuts — while many Republicans have argued against the $1 trillion in increases in tax revenues through the elimination of numerous tax breaks.
“I could use a bridge like this guy who could go between the parties,” Bowles said of King. “It would make such a difference.”
Bowles rejected the notion that, while King would not be beholden to partisan politics, he could be isolated and ineffective as an unenrolled independent in the Senate.
“I wish North Carolina had an independent senator,” he said. “He’ll have more power than anybody else. It’ll be close to 50-50 in terms of political control [of Congress], and all the guys in the middle — and he’ll be one of them — will have all the power. I think this one guy can make a big, big difference.”
King is widely seen as the front-runner in the race to replace retiring Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe. His opponents are Democrat Cynthia Dill, Republican Summers and independents Steve Woods, Danny Dalton and Andrew Ian Dodge.
The Summers campaign on Sunday afternoon quickly issued a reaction to King’s appearance alongside Bowles, trumpeting a nearly $1 billion budget gap in the state government left when King’s second gubernatorial term ended.
“Despite campaigning for governor on the promise to rein in government spending, Angus King left office — and the state of Maine — with a $1 billion dollar budget shortfall for his successor to deal with,” Drew Brandewie, spokesman for Summers, said in a statement. “For Angus to sit alongside Erskine Bowles and masquerade as being tough on the national debt is the height of hypocrisy — just ask Gov. Baldacci.”
Republican groups have been aggressive in questioning King’s record as governor in the campaign thus far, with the Summers-backing U.S. Chamber of Commerce launching a $400,000 ad campaign in which race leader is called the “King of Spending” and Summers himself releasing a video blasting King’s stance against negative advertising as “hypocritical.”
King and his supporters have responded by saying increases in state spending during his tenure in the Blaine House are signs he took advantage of a strong economy for much-needed and overdue infrastructure and business development investments that have since benefited Maine.
King has noted that he encountered a budget deficit when he took office and that he cut nearly 1,200 state jobs — adding up to around $45 million in payroll and benefits — early in his tenure as part of his response.
Sunday’s town hall discussion took place at the University of Southern Maine’s Portland campus and was organized by the King campaign. Fellow independent and former Maine gubernatorial hopeful Eliot Cutler moderated the event.
Along with former U.S. Sen. Alan Simpson from Wyoming, Bowles, former University of North Carolina president, served as co-chairman of the bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, formed in 2010 by President Barack Obama to develop a federal deficit reduction plan.
The resultant 64-page document — which closed nearly all federal tax loopholes to drive up revenues while cutting back about $200 million each year in discretionary spending — is now being converted into more than 650 pages of proposed legislation for the upcoming session, Bowles said.
Bowles said that while the steps included in the plan will be hard to stomach politically, the country is in danger of becoming “a second-rate power” if big changes aren’t made.
“Do not let any politician, Republican, Democrat or independent, tell you we can grow our way out of this problem,” Bowles said. “Don’t let any Democrat tell you we can tax our way out of this problem. And as much as I’d like to tell you, as a fiscal conservative, we can cut our way out of this problem, we can’t.”
Bowles listed what he sees as the five biggest threats to the country’s economic stability: The cost of health care, which he said takes up 25 percent of the federal budget, an amount twice that being spent by “any other developed country;” defense spending, which at more than $600 billion annually is more than the next 15 largest countries combined; an “ineffective, inefficient tax code” that’s difficult to follow or enforce; Social Security, which he called “$600 billion tax negative over the next decade;” and “the reality of compound interest,” which adds up to $250 billion in federal spending each year.
King said if he’s elected, he’ll be willing to weather the backlash which would come along with supporting a debt reduction strategy like the Simpson-Bowles plan.
“The problem is of such a magnitude that solving it is impossible without some real strain almost everywhere,” King told the Bangor Daily News before the Sunday event. “If we were talking about borrowing five cents out of every dollar we spend that would be one thing. But we’re talking about borrowing 40 cents out of every dollar we spend, and so resolving that issue is just going to be really tough. There’s just no question that this fits into the category of ‘Sometimes you’ve just got to do the right thing,’ and understand that people aren’t going to be happy about it.
“I believe that the people understand that this is a problem that has to be dealt with now, and we just can’t keep putting it off,” he continued. “Every day we put it off, it gets harder to solve.”
King naturally echoed Bowles’ sentiment that an independent could be crucial to ushering a potentially unpopular deficit reduction plan to passage.
“I think the first thing you do is find kindred spirits, and there are some,” King said. “I think there are definitely [moderate] people in Congress, and if you woke them up in the middle of the night without their party labels on, there would be a majority who would know we’ve got to do this. It’s just a question of trying to be a catalyst. If the Democrats say, ‘Oh, we can’t have these serious cuts,’ and the Republicans say, ‘We can’t have any new revenues,’ somebody’s got to stand up and say, ‘Come on, folks, there’s only one way to solve this, and everybody knows it — let’s get it done and move on.’”
That may be what Bowles says but I don’t believe a word of it. Lived through the A King years, not going there again.
What a bias, bullcrap headline by the BDN…WHAT ELSE WOULD WE EXPECT!
crook one word crook . the wind mill KING of Maine. O and did I say he’s a CROOK.
King-Pin
$102 million federal loan guarantee for Record Hill Wind. Insider info for him to bail out before the sh– hits the fan on the misrepresentation and croneyism to get it. Yeah, really, we want to send this sleaze to DC to represent us?
King is only interested in promoting himself and wind power..He is a power monger and will take many years to un due the mess he created!!
Chuckepilgrim, I really don’t think that your accusation that Angus is only interested in himself is really fair/accurate at all. First of all, he’s really interested in many different forms of energy investment. Second, his work with wind energy has been amazing for Maine and Roxbury in particular. Not only did the wind project he supported cause taxes in Roxbury to fall by 60%, it also caused property values to rise as well. And on your point that he’s a power monger, nothing could be farther from the truth. Angus is running for the US Senate because he wants to fix our governments problems, not because he wants to hold an important position.
King is all about EGO. The biggest ego I have ever seen in my many decades of watching politics. He actually has himself convinced that he will change the Senate. Ha! I’m sure he will walk on the water of the reflecting pool on his way to the Capitol. People have got to get beyond this superficial idolization of this guy and realize he was at best a mediocre Governor and only excels in selling his line of B.S.
you do realize wind power is heavily financed by your electric bill.It is unsustainable.
StanHev,
Where do you get the idea that property values in Roxbury have risen due to the wind project?
If you’re assuming property values have risen because the project has reduced property taxes, you’re kidding yourself.
Do you have any evidence to support your statement?
Every one has an opinion however I stand by my comments. The only reason wind power is in any way sost effictave is in place like the valley in California where thousands are in a natural wind tunnel. With out Taxpayers footing the bill they will never have a payback.
Also the greens are looking into the fact that the ones in Calif. are changing the wind pattens to the extent we are experiencing drastic changes in our weather thru the USA.
King is a spend and tax ..rtake from those that are working and give to the the ones thhat will not work!!
I kinda gotta be tellin’ ya, windpower is fine, it seems to me, that a country as money smart as Scotland, is, placing wind turbines all over Scotland. But, the point I would like to be stating, is if ya want ta be talkin’ mess, I am not sure how many decades it will take to clean up the mess Bush and Cheney made. If King is a power Monger, great, we need a power monger in DC, who do you think he will have to deal with. I do not think he is as selfish as those would like to make him out. I know a person that got a laptop from King’s program, and is now a software engineer, saying it was the laptop that put him on that interest to become involved with web design. King has not pleased everybody, but, recognize all of Maine.
So Bush and Cheney made all this mess by themselves.Why is it fair to say that poor Obama was blindsided by what he inherited yet W was in a mere 8 months and was handed 9/11.As far as these two going it alone military force passed the house 420 to1 the senate 98 to 0.The iraq war passed r 215 to 6 D82-126 senate R48 TO1 D 29-21.Looks to me like they had a lot of by partisan help.And at least he went to congress before dictating like this new regime.
Look up Erskine Bowles on Forbes profiles. Tried to post but got the moderator message.
Any one remeber the Andy Grffin show when Aunt Bea bought the super ailixa from the traveling sales crook in town. He had the whole town believing it worked. The guy even looks like King. people look at Kings true recorded. He’s nothing but power hungry. He needs to be obammmm’s pal. I just cant believe people cant see though this guy. What happened to Aunt Bea in the end she got loaded or drunk on booze and the traveling sales crook got run out of town. KING think about it CROOK!
The only bridge A King is going to build if elected is from the federal treasury to his deep pockets.
Even Cynthia Dill would be better representation for our state, and that’s not saying much.
Nowadays you don’t vote for the “best” candidate, you vote for the “least worst”. I’ll vote for Angus only because the GOP endorsed Dill in an attempt to get anti Summers voters to split their votes. I hope that’s not successful, but sounds like it might work. Somehow we have to get on board to ensure that Summers loses. I think a vote for Dill is a vote thrown away, and that’s just what the GOP wants.
King has made some money, that, is no sin, he did some things, wind power, I was there through the King years too, not nearly as bad as what we got now. King has, if you look, some soul, in that,for any faults, he does do some things for the masses, he does think beyond an agenda set up. I
defend King, for, in my opinion he is really the only choice we have to send to Washington.
Use comas much?
I,well,am not sure, what, you mean,what’s ah comas?
King is a political hack posing as an independent when he is simply a tax-and-spend Democrat. Look at the BILLION dollar deficit he produced while governor and people want to send this guy to DC?!
Kouch, your misguided in believing the silly and dishonest ads put out by the US Chamber of Commerce. I’m not sure if you know this, but under Maine state law it is IMPOSSIBLE for there to be a deficit; all budgets must be balanced. This means that all the budgets under King, Baldacci and LePage have been balanced.
Baldacci “balanced” the budget by not paying hundreds of millions in bills to Maine hopsitals, practically giving away valuable state assets to connected Dem insiders, and using accounting gimmicks to move expenses from one year to the next. To claim that the failed Baldacci administration balanced the budget is to expose your ignorance.
Is Charlie Summers not a political hack?
I wasn’t here during the King years, but I can tell you this:
I will NOT believe in and I will NOT vote for anyone who:
– uses the word “ain’t” only when talking to constituents.
– puts on his new LLBean plaid short when talking to constituents.
– claims he doesn’t “even know what Brie is!”
– says he’ll abide by the will of the local people but then goes ahead with a wind project that nets him millions even though 80% of the locals oppose it.
– lies to the Feds (with Chellie Pingree’s help) about his wind project’s technology, his own net worth and his financial backer’s (Yale Endowment) net worth in order to get millions in loan guaranteed by us taxpayers.
– tells us commoners that we need to conserve to “get off foreign oil” and then drives a 6mpg RV all over the country.
– rides a Harley across Maine to show he’s “one of us”.
All of this adds up to someone who looks down on the people of Maine and is obsessed with lining his pockets.
Why would King cut spending? HE didn’t do it here. He wouldn’t do it in Washington! He would side with his fellow Democrats, and that’s why the Democrats are running him!
Abbyisgod, I’m sorry but Angus DID cut spending in Maine and the fact that he supports parts of the Simpson-Bowls report proves that he is also highly invested in cutting spending in DC.
He won’t cut the spending for the wasteful subsidies for wind.
Wind is such a feckless source of electricity, that it requires far greater subsidies than any other source of electricity per Megawatt Hour. In July 2011, the USEIA published results for 2010 for subsidies per MWH (direct, tax, R & D, and electricity support). The subsidy per MWH is $52.43 for wind; the next highest is $2.78 for nuclear, then 84 cents for hydro, 64 cents for coal, and 63 cents for natural gas.
Support for wind is bad economics, based on poor science, mandated by bad public policy caused by lobbyists influencing politicians pandering to be “green” rather than making sound decisions based on economics. On that basis, King will surely support it.
Walmart is investing in wind power, maybe you should boycott them!
http://www.forbes.com/sites/toddwoody/2012/08/06/walmart-winds-up-wind-power-in-california/
Natural gas is definitely the way to go, but how do we get lines run to everyone in such a rural State? I live in a fairly large town (for Maine), and the closest natural gas line I know of is many miles away.
Ha ha ha ha.
The numbers are there for anyone to read, Stan. State spending increased by more than 80% under King.
In the words of Teddy Roosevelt, there are lies, damn lies, and statistics. Angus put more money into the state rainy day fund that any other governor. That is a savings account. If you take money out of your pocket and put it into a savings count, are you spending it? Not to mention that he cut taxes by 9% overall and decreased unemployment by 13%, all while upgrading maine’s highways, education system, and technological advancement. He was a great governor.
Simpson Bowles may be the only chance we had at a reducing the deficit by fairly spreading the burden across the socio economic spectrum. The commission reported that the budget would not be balanced until 2037… beware of candidates promising that the budget can be balanced in two terms, 8 years.
Angus managed to bring our kids into the 21st century with the laptop program.
The King is banking on the fact that no one looks @ his record & believes his hype. If anyone
cares, look @ it. As a life long Democrat, he only became an “independent” when
he realized that he couldn’t beat Joe Brennan back in ’94. He’s got the $$$, a
pliant press, & a fawning constituency who don’t seem to realize that Maine
needs NEW BLOOD, not a 68 year old
narcissistic-lining-his-pockets-looking-for-one-more-easy-government-job
opportunist. (& no, this isn’t ageism. This guy has had his multiple slurps
# the trough.)
EXACTLY.
RJ, I think if you look at Angus’ record seriously, rather than from a partisan perspective you will realize that he is totally cut out to be our state’s next great senator. He wont be bound by parties and in what is expected to be a closely tied senate, he will be well positioned to put Maine in the center of US politics! I could not imagine anything better for the state!
Our state’s next great federal level THIEF.
Remember Stan, it is not called the lamestream media for no reason. You are parroting what the leftist media wants you to believe. Think for yourself!
King is a lot better then a Tea Party Extremist that would put this country into another Bush Depression. Vote NO on any Radical Republican.
knight, i’m voting for all republicans this fall. our votes cancel each other out. and that makes me smile.
I’m voting all democrat so why don’t we both just stay home and save ourselves the aggravation. LOL, I’m joking of course, but only about the staying home part.
As the many mean-spirited comments in this forum indicate, bridging the “partisan divide” is perhaps an impossible task in the short term. Olympia Snowe realized this, and it is part of why she decided not to run again.
The problem is that the GOP has shifted so far to the right. It refuses to compromise. It refuses to listen to logic or science. Its main energy source is irrational anger focused irrationally.
Snowe got out because she knew her vote on Obama care was going to catch up with her and she was going to be shown the door. We don’t have the best cast of characters to vote for but King is definitely the last person we need to send to replace her.
I know it was almost three years ago, but Snowe voted AGAINST Obamacare. Her reputation as a moderate was not supported by her voting record, except on women’s issues. Only when compared to other Senate Republicans could she be considered moderate. Not the best test of moderation.
It was her vote that brought Obamacare out of committee, when she could have let it die there…
Something happened between her and the WH after that…. She has not spoken to the President since according to news reports here in the BDN about 3-4 months ago.
I disagree, Summers has shown himself to be selfish and dishonest. I believe he’s the last person we need to send to replace her.
I think you meant the Dems. have gone to far to the left.
EXACTLY.
You misunderstand why she left. She has not met with the President since 2009 when there was a dispute between them. That is very unusual for a US Senator.
I’m not convinced my bests interests will be represented by Angus King. He doesn’t get my vote.
If you don’t want King in the Senate, please vote. I volunteer at the local Democrat office and poll people to see who they favor. Many Democrats say they will vote for King. So if he’s not your choice, don’t let someone else elect him because you didn’t vote.
I would instead recommend that people actually educate themselves on the candidates’ positions before making a decision. Each of their websites does a pretty good job explaining where they stand on things.
If the democrats split their votes between Dill and King…Summers will win. The GOP has run ads endorsing Dill just to get this very thing to happen so they can slip their boy Summers in. What we need is a poll among democrats that tells who their voting for, otherwise Charlie wins.
Go Dill!
Dill is the sacrificial lamb the Democratic party has led to the slaughter not to take votes away from their real candidate….KING. For Dill no party money or support.
King, Queen, One eyed Jack!
I’ll take anything but a Republican Miscreant, Joker !
cut spending? really? so now king is going to start cut spending?
i took too laughing.
Although I won’t be voting for him, I give King credit for continuing to win the PR game and securing free publicity.
Thank you for being a reasonable human being.
It was a staged event to feed his EGO! I am sorry Mr. Bowles, whom I respect, got suckered into it. We would be much further ahead in solving our spending & taxation problem if Obama hadn’t rejected the Simpson-Bowles Commission recommendations.
Erskine needs to come clean about his role in the murder of Vince Foster.
My problem with Anguish…The prints of darkness. has always been his attempt to destroy education in Maine by having all teachers be fingerprinted….Unless I am arrested for something..I refuse to be fingerprinted….Many fine teachers including at least two Teachers of The Year quit rather than submit to the King. And to this day no one knows who actually has access to the prints.
And on the bi-partisan thing…when the two ruling parties get together and agree on something….ya know it ain’t goin to be a good thing…
That happens sometimes with companies who are pretending to be something they will never be. They want information that won’t even be sent to a government agency. It goes to some rinkydink private security firm. As if I trust any of those firms to have the information. The best way to handle it is ask “Do I get a gun and badge for that?” and you’ll be excused from the rest of the interview. Also, try asking if they use the $10 background check service or the $15 one. They really like that one.
4 Trillion over 10 years? How bout trying to get rid of at least 12 in 5
I’d like to see the Republicans propose a realistic plan that’s half this ambitious. Key word here being realistic.
The only bridge King has ever build, is tax payers dollars to his bank account.
Angus did a great job as Governor, and he’ll do the same as Senator. Glad to see him getting some endorsement from a respectable and knowledgeable conservative like Bowles. I’ll be voting for Angus, because what we need is level-headed change and willingness to compromise, not hard-headed extremists.
Bowles apparently forgot the $1b deficit King left his adopted state.
Ted, please see my comment for Kouch.
I attended the event and was very impressed with what Mr. Bowles had to say. He not only put the scale of our debt problem into focus, but laid out the types of actions needed to fix it.
I commend Angus for engaging directly with such an important issue in a way that is constructive, rather than simply engaging in mud-slinging (which is so much easier to do, but which only pushes us farther from a solution).
Some town hall forum… Angus only allowed 3 questions, and pre-selected ones at that.
You won’t find King allowing open questioning in this campaign. He knows he will get confronted with his record as Governor and clobbered over his role in the Record Hill Wind environmental disaster. I will put his toes to the fire on both counts if given the opportunity. He only wants adoration from his acolytes! Feed that EGO, lemmings!
I attended the event and I was very impressed with Mr. Bowles and his ability to not only bring the enormity of the debt problem into focus, but also suggest actions that we must take to fix it.
I commend Angus for engaging directly and seriously with the issue, rather than simply posturing or mud-slinging (as is so easy to do, but which only serves to make finding solutions more difficult).
Why do you think Angus King is running for office???
Because he knows Mainers are fooled easy. You know slow.
King – the REAL KING – is everything Bowles said we don’t need. He’s a partisan, self-preserving salesman of a politician willing to do and say anything to get elected. He has a horrible financial record as governor and there’s absolutely no reason to believe he’d be any different in the senate.
Now if only the President would get behind Bowles- Simpson this might mean something.
Exactly. O’Bummer ignoring the Simpson-Bowles Commission recommendation is a travesty. He appointed the commission. It was bi-partisan. It had a reasonable blueprint out of our economic mess. But since O’Bummer didn’t like what he saw because cows that were sacred to his special interest groups were to be slaughtered (like all the waste of taxpayer money on “green” energy that doesn’t work!), he did nothing to try to use it with Congress.
Exactly what is it about Angus Kaching’s self-serving and pocket-lining ways that Democrats don’t seem to see?
King the puppet and one of his puppet masters. watch his hand.
I’m glad to see Governor King’s message resonates amongst the influential in Washington. He really does have the ability to be the King of Influence in the legislature.
Those who forget or never learn history are doomed to forget it:
Kennedy cut taxes and federal revenues increased.
Reagan cut taxes and federal revenues increased.
Bush 43 cut taxes and federal revenues increased.
There is only one party that will take a serious approach to cutting our enormous debt, and it certainly isn’t the Democrats.
Consider that Bowles is a Dem and that the Dem Party has gone all in for King. Consider King’s extraordinary growth of the state budget during his tenure. Then ask yourself one question (ahem): “Is King really an independent or merely someone embarrassed to admit he is a Democrat?”
King is a mildewed remnant of average intellect who has profited handsomely at the expense of the taxpayers for his Quixotic projects throughout Maine. His politics are seasoned with a thoroughly liberal bent, and his record as a former governor is deplorable if one would only make the effort to review the facts. If King is elected we will again be ruled by an inferior and subject to the same prevailing gusts of incompetency and irresponsibility that has been de rigueur among Democrats and sub rosa liberals like King.
How will he bridge the partisan gap when the rino-independent will likely caucus and vote with the Democratic Party? If King gets in, it will be same old same old……..
No, it will be worse….
When did voting democrat become bridging the gap.
What an enlightening event! Thanks to everyone who pulled it together. It was inspiring to hear how these three great minds remain hopefully that through compromise and hard work we can get our country back on track. I am proud to support Angus for U.S. Senator – he is the right guy for the job. I truly believe he has the level headedness, experience, and vision to serve Maine and the United States well.
Telemarketers have fun with you.
Funny how that will work when it is obvious that King will caucas with the Dumbocrats.
More money swinging on a plum bob, that way he gets paid off from both sides.
Mainers are an easy target and Bowles and other money men know this.. King is already owned by these people and if Mainers think the King will represent them rather then these money men we are all in trouble…
Nobody knows what King Stands for or who he stands for.. He is a proffiteer plain and simple.
BDN took the story off the front page, LOL!!!
Firstly, I thought that the event was informative and interesting. The debt crisis is an extremely pressing issue and the partisan divide in Washington is clearly making it worse. Congress needs more people like Angus who can negotiate on both sides.
Secondly, I’m surprised that a few of you accuse Angus of being power hungry and egotistical because I find him to be one of the most genuine politicians out there! Even if his views do not align completely with yours, he has always taken the action that he feels is right and stood strongly by he decision, unlike many politicians who allow their ideology to change so they can get re-elected. Angus is committed to fixing the debt, which is why I believe that if elected he’ll work tirelessly to do so without cutting billions of dollars from programs that help the poorest and most vulnerable Americans.
yet he set it up so that poor Mainers paid double for electric rates durning his 2 terms as governor
Angus King-
*He left the State of Maine in a mountain of debt
*He is backing the Obama supported Quimby National Park
*He is tied with Mike Michaud for doing absolutely nothing to help small business
*His history of working with green groups has always taken priority over “everything”
*King is a well connected, well financed greenie, who has no intention of increasing manufacturing in Maine.
The only thing King is good at is tax-n-spend
by
Ben Shapiro BREITBART
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/09/10/angus-king-solyndra-Obama-Department-of-Energy
The Obama administration is famous for its crony capitalism.
It’s famous for wasting money on disastrous investments like Solyndra
to pay off its political allies. It now appears, however, that they go
a step further: they put public funds in bad investment loans,
then double down on their bad loans with free cash grants.
Here’s the short story: Angus King, former governor of Maine,
Obama supporter, and front-running independent Senate candidate, owned
a wind company. Obama’s Department of Energy handed over a
deeply questionable $102 million loan to that company. It appears that
as that company was coming under investigation, King quickly
divested himself of his interests, hoping he was doing so just in time
to escape scrutiny, and as he was preparing to announce his candidacy
for Senate.
But that’s not where the story ends. It seems that before he left the
company, King helped apply for a Department of Energy grant worth some
$33 million. Which means one of two things: either the company was
thriving, in which case King was helping bilk taxpayers for an
additional $33 million; or the company was having
financial difficulties, in which case the $33 million grant was designed
to help cover the cost of the loans, $23 million of which was coming
due with a maturity date of April 27, 2012.
Either way, the situation doesn’t look good for King, or the
Obama Administration. Either the two were working to ensure that
King’s company got paid millions so that King could reap the benefits,
or they were working to cover up a troubled company and
highly questionable investment subsidized with federal tax money.
Here’s the more complete story.
In 1997, Governor King signed into law a bill that would
require utilities to generate at least 30 percent of their energy from
“green” sources like wind. In 2007, King decided to take advantage of
his mandate and founded a wind energy company, Independence Wind.
The first major project of Independence Wind was to build the Record
Hill wind farm, near Roxbury, Maine.
Ironically, King once said, “In the process of rebuilding Maine, we must
never compromise the integrity of our environment. It’s not
only immoral, it’s bad economics.” Yet his wind project has blasted the
tops of mountain ridges along many of bucolic Maine’s well-known and
beloved mountaintops to make way for a new and much less attractive
landscape consisting of hundreds of windmills.
In 2011, King’s company received a $102 million for development
of Record Hill. The loan came through the same stimulus program
that funded Solyndra. The original federally-guaranteed loan was
as questionable as the Solyndra loan. As it turned out, there was no
need for a federally-guaranteed loan on the surface; the company
supposedly had $127 million in liquid assets available, assets it had to
have under Maine state law in order to commence construction. The
loan program was specifically designed to help companies that couldn’t
get private loans otherwise.
Furthermore, the company may not have been eligible for the loan,
since its technology wasn’t innovative under the applicable regulation.
But the company got the loan anyway, from an Obama administration eager
to help out its cronies. Angus King was, of course, an Obama supporter,
endorsing him and having contributed at least $10,000 to Obama’s
reelection campaign.
Record Hill promptly used the money on foreign companies. Just a quarter
of the cash was reinvested in the State of Maine; 58 percent of the
cash went to Siemens to pay for building 22 windmills. The turbines
themselves were manufactured in Europe “because that’s where the biggest
turbine market is, and the tower sections are made in Asia, because
that’s where the new efficient steel mills are,” said King’s partner in
Record Hill, Rob Gardiner. About 467 people worked on the site,
reportedly, but “at least some of these jobs could measure their
duration in days rather than weeks or months.” Today, nobody is employed
by the wind farm itself.
In March, King declared his Senate candidacy. He would run as
an independent, but he would likely caucus with the Democrats. He was
a solid lock to replace Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME).
But the loan was coming under scrutiny. As steam picked up on
the curiosity about Record Hill, King spoke out. “The project is
operating and actually is ahead of its production schedule,” he claimed.
“The risk now basically is that the wind won’t ever blow again, and
that is a pretty low risk.”
Despite King’s assessment of the situation, the House Committee
on Oversight and Government Reform, led by Darrell Issa, released
a report bashing the Department of Energy and singling out Record
Hill as a loan that shouldn’t have happened. Two days before the report
was released, King dropped his association with Record Hill, dumping
all of his stock. He told a Maine news outlet the timing was an
“amazing coincidence.” Actually, Record Hill was notified that they’d
be mentioned, and King almost certainly wanted to avoid
blowback. Gardiner admitted that he’d received a letter of notification
from the Committee two days before King sold his stock.
But wait, there’s more! From August 2011 to January 2012, the
federal financing bank signed checks worth $101.5 million to Record
Hill. In March 2011, King and Gardiner said they’d expect another $70
million in stimulus funds; as of July 2012, they’d received another
$33.7 million in Section 1603 cash grants. A grant, not a loan.
Was the grant designed to help Record Hill cover loan repayments
that the company couldn’t pay? Or was it just double-dipping by
a highly-connected company?
If it’s the former, this is fraud. For the federal government
to guarantee a loan, know the loan is going bad, and then give a
“grant” to a company to pay off that loan is cooking the books.
If it’s the latter, King and company were all too happy to grab more and more taxpayer money.
King, for his part, continues to maintain that the company is in
solid financial shape. But if it is, why should the Department of
Energy give it a $33 million grant? What need would the company have for
such a grant? Angus King and his former partner are wealthy magnates;
the company supposedly had $127 million in liquidity when it began.
If these 1 percenters are so flush, why do they insist on taking
money from the 99 percent to pay for their already-flourishing company?
This isn’t Solyndra. This is far worse than Solyndra. It wasn’t just
a Solyndra-like loan to a wind energy company designed to make a
Senate candidate rich – although it appears that the Department of
Energy loan was Solyndra-lite. It’s the follow-up grant that’s even
more troubling. The cash grants arrived just two months after King cut
ties with the company – and it takes several months for such
grant applications to be filed. If the company was doing well, it
wouldn’t need a grant; if it was doing poorly, it didn’t deserve a
grant. But it got a grant nonetheless.
This is not the first time that Angus King has been involved in
a Solyndra-like situation. King’s son, Angus III, is vice president
of First Wind, another wind boondoggle that received federal
stimulus dollars and almost went bankrupt.
King’s wind fixation certainly enhanced his wealth. It hasn’t
enhanced the wealth of Maine or American taxpayers, though. It’s
cronyism at its finest. And it’s a double-down Solyndra story that
should make any taxpayer cringe.