U.S. Sen. Susan Collins said Thursday that high earners should pay more into Social Security, siding with Democrat Troy Jackson on an idea most Republicans have avoided in a second debate that turned personal over money and influence.
It was a surprising shift. As recently as Thursday morning, a Collins spokesperson told NBC News she had not taken a position on lifting the cap. The spokesperson pointed only to her call for an independent commission of experts. On the WMTW stage, she went further.
“I don’t think someone who makes $40 million a year as a movie star should pay the same rate of social security taxes as someone who’s earning $184,000 a year,” she said. “We simply are going to have to adjust the cap.”
It was a rare moment of agreement in a debate that was arguably sharper than Tuesday’s opener, which centered on abortion and ethics. Jackson got further off honed talking points and made an unfounded claim that Collins and her husband profited from the Iran war, drawing a demand for an apology.
Earnings above $184,500 a year aren’t taxed for Social Security. The program’s trust fund is projected to run short in late 2032, which would trigger a large benefit cut unless Congress acts. Jackson wants to scrap the cap and expand benefits. Collins did not specify whether adjusting it means eliminating the cap, raising it or taxing income above a higher threshold.
The rest of the hour ran through the central argument of a race that could decide control of the U.S. Senate. Collins pledged in 1996 to serve only two terms and is now seeking a sixth, citing the $1.5 billion she has secured for Maine projects as the top Senate appropriator while Jackson continued to try to tie her to the unpopular President Donald Trump.
“She’s powerful towards election time, but she’s weak every time that we needed her to stand up and fight for us,” Jackson said.
Jackson, who has rejected corporate PAC money during his campaign like many Democrats, was asked about a Washington Post report. It found that under his leadership, the Maine Senate’s Democratic campaign arm took money from tobacco, drug and gambling companies while he was listed as one of its principal officers from 2017 to 2024.
He said he didn’t decide which donations it took, even though he told reporters in August he was “one of a number of people that made those decisions.”
“I have never accepted any donations from Big Tobacco. Troy has,” Collins said.
Her 2020 campaign took nearly $12,000 from tobacco industry PACs and employees, according to OpenSecrets. Federal law bars companies from giving directly to candidates. Maine law allowed the tobacco company Altria to give $12,000 to Jackson’s PAC.
Jackson’s charge that Collins profits from the Iran War echoed a September report by a liberal news site promoted by the Maine Democratic Party. It found that her husband, longtime political strategist and former lobbyist Tom Daffron, owns stock in the defense contractors Boeing and RTX. But RTX stock is down since the war began, and Boeing has traded sluggishly.
“That is absolutely outrageous, and you owe me an apology,” Collins said.
On abortion, both candidates said they would vote for federal protections. Under fire from Democrats for her 2018 vote for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, she noted that she co-sponsored a 2022 bill to write Roe v. Wade into law and pointed to Jackson’s opposition to abortion rights earlier in his career.
He acknowledged voting “the wrong way” and turned it back to the Kavanaugh vote, which Collins has stood by even though she opposed the court’s vote to end federal abortion rights.
“I can admit when I was wrong,” Jackson said. “Sen. Collins can’t.”