Your Dec. 24 editorial characterizing Sen. Susan Collins’ vote on the tax bill as an act of partisanship reflects your inability to escape your own biased perspective. The reality is quite different. Sen. Collins remains a unique figure in today’s political world – someone who judges issues on their merits, letting the political chips fall where they may.
I respect those who opposed the tax bill. I also respect Sen. Collins’ judgment that the good outweighed the bad. After all, even President Obama and former Sen. George Mitchell support lower corporate taxes, as they ultimately benefit U.S. workers. What I cannot respect is a baseless charge that she acted for partisan reasons.
Sen. Collins’ track record belies the notion that her decision was based on anything other than her view of the merits of the legislation, as improved by the changes and commitments she secured. In just the past 18 months, she has taken two courageous actions that would have been extraordinary even in less polarized times.
First, she declared her own party’s candidate for the presidency unfit for the office. Second, she blocked her party from repealing the Affordable Care Act, its top legislative priority, because it failed to include measures to mitigate the harm that might ensue. Those were acts of someone motivated by principle, not partisanship.
Ironically, some who applauded Sen. Collins for not pandering to the right now excoriate her for not pandering to them. It is no surprise that Sen. Collins is equally unpopular with Gov. LePage and the leadership of the Maine Democratic Party.
Those attacking Sen. Collins call to mind the line in the old “Pogo” comic strip – “we have met the enemy and it is us.” Extreme partisanship and a mind closed to different points of view lie not with Sen. Collins but with her critics.
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