Susan Collins Voted to Cut More Money in Federal Funding Than She Has Brought In

Senator Susan Collins loves to take credit for federally funded projects in Maine, but she doesn’t like to talk about how much money she has lost for the State of Maine. A new report by the Maine Center for Economic Policy finds that while Collins claims to have helped bring $3.45 billion to Maine over the past decade, her deciding procedural vote to advance President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act will cost our state $4.125 billion over the next ten years. The grossly misnamed law will cut billions of dollars in funding for health care, nutrition assistance, and clean energy investments while giving $1 trillion tax cuts to the ultra-rich.

Dark money groups are spending millions of dollars to spread the message that Susan Collins is uniquely responsible for bringing home federal money to Maine, but the reality is that every Senator brings home federal money. It’s part of the job of being a Senator and Maine’s entire Congressional delegation plays a role securing federal money for various projects. While Collins has an influential role as the Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, her position is dependent on her party being in power and as the MECEP study finds, she has used that power to cut more funding to Maine than she is bringing in. Collins had the power to stop the OBBA and she didn’t. She voted for the bill when it mattered and took a symbolic vote against the bill when it wasn’t needed.

“The math doesn’t work,”wrote Mark Shaffer, MECEP’s Tax and Budget Policy Analyst.  No amount of ribbon-cutting offsets the $4.125 billion in cuts to health care, nutrition assistance, and clean energy investments Senator Collins cost Maine with just one vote.”

While Collins and her allies have frequently touted her support for the Rural Health Transformation Program (RHTP), which is projected to deliver just $950 million for Maine, it is far short of the $2.7 billion needed to offset the impact of the OBBA’s Medicaid cuts to healthcare providers. At most, the RHTP “replacement fund” covers at most a mere 5 percent of the Medicaid cuts. According to MECEP:

• States can spend only 15% of RHTP money on direct provider payments which were previously covered by Medicaid.
• That means Maine can replace only $142.5 million of the $2.7 billion it loses in Medicaid funding.
• 31,000 Mainers will lose coverage. Rural hospitals — already running thinner margins after cutting charity care by $80 million since 2018 — will be left to absorb the rest.
• At least four Maine hospitals are at risk of closure or significantly curtailing services due to this policy, including MaineHealth Mid Coast Hospital in Brunswick; Northern Light AR Gould Hospital in Presque Isle; St. Mary’s Health System in Lewiston; and York Hospital in York.

In addition, the OBBA cuts $1.1 billion over 10 years from food assistance programs to help struggling families, people with disabilities, veterans and other Mainers who have fallen on hard times. These cuts will not only cause hunger to rise, but they also hurt the economy as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) generates $1.54 in local economic activity. The SNAP cuts also shift $94 million in new costs onto Maine taxpayers which will be compounded during a recession.

Finally, the report finds that the OBBA has put $5.3 billion in planned Maine clean-energy investment at risk as it significantly accelerates the expiration and limits the scope of clean energy tax credits established under the Inflation Reduction Act These cuts have been devastating for clean energy union jobs in Maine, forcing many skilled union electricians to leave their families to work out of state. MECEP projects that Maine will likely lose approximately $325 million in clean energy investment while ratepayers will be pay about $80 more per year for electricity.

“Mainers should judge Senator Collins on her record — not only on the money she claims credit for bringing home, but also the harm her choices leave behind,” wrote Shaffer. “On Senator Collins’ watch, Maine is $675 million worse off, even before counting higher insurance premiums from the ACA credit rollback, tariff impact on Canadian trade, and cuts to federal services.”

MECEP did not include in its report the cost of the Iran War, DOGE cuts, the impact of Trump’s tariffs or the expiration of Enhanced Premium Tax Credits (ePTCs) to purchase health insurance on the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) marketplace. Letting the ACA subsidies expire increases monthly health insurance premiums by an average of 77 percent to 117 percent for 54,000 Mainers. MECEP estimates that expiring ePTCs will reduce federal funding by $42 million, cost 500 jobs, lower state and local tax revenue by $6 million, and decrease overall spending in Maine’s economy, particularly in rural communities.

The war in Iran has caused U.S. gasoline prices to jump by roughly 45 percent, adding more than $1.33 per gallon to the national average since the conflict began. Gasbuddy reported Thursday that Maine and New Jersey have just reached a new all-time record price for diesel, making it now 44 states where diesel prices are at all-time highs.

According to the Center for American Progress Elon Musk’s DOGE cuts, including the termination of federal grants and leases, have cost Maine more than $530 million. So in total, Republican control of all three branches of the federal government has caused Maine to lose at least $4.7 billion in dollars. That’s about 40 percent of the state budget that supports jobs, innovation as well research and development and more.

Figure reflects 10-year projections based on CBO, Maine DHS, and USDA SNAP data, and analysis of hospital financial reports (2018–2024).