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Multimillion-dollar digital advertisements tout Susan Collin’s work bringing federal funds to Maine. Let’s take a look. Defense funds, especially the big one at Bath Iron Works, would mostly be coming to Maine no matter who are our senators as the Navy needs to keep two shipyards building DDGs. And BIW has not been successful in competing for other federal contracts.
Let’s look at the future if Collins continues in the Senate. It’s likely she could be voting for two Supreme Court justices in the wake of her vote for Brett Kavanaugh. Her role as the Appropriations Committee chair would likely either be ignored by the Trump administration, as it largely has been, or be rubber stamping new war monies or tariffs. There will be no Medicare for All.
I believe she would be another enabler of the damage that President Donald Trump has done to our domestic economy and foreign policy. If Trump loses the Senate, I believe she will be largely relegated to the sidelines, no matter her seniority.
In the years after 2028, if Trump and his backers are defeated, she could spend the next four years as an ineffectual voice. If they are not, she would likely be honored and ignored, like other senators over the age of 80.
Maine is going to have to lose the seniority that it has built in Congress. I think it’s time to do it now, before any more damage can be done. Let’s start getting our new representation by electing the only real working-class senator, Troy Jackson.
Ben Fuller
Cushing