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I believe Elon Musk and other billionaires are spending big on Sen. Susan Collins’ reelection because she’s likely to vote in their interests when they want weakened business regulations, or the confirmation of another partisan Supreme Court justice or unqualified Cabinet member.

They’re spending millions on ads to remind us of all the fire trucks and town docks Collins has showered on the state, yet during Collins’ time in Washington, D.C., her party took us into three wars and passed four enormous tax cuts, mostly benefiting the already wealthy and corporations. The senator assured us that the Trump 2017 tax cuts would pay for themselves. They didn’t. And neither will the tax cuts the Republicans passed last year.

Our national debt is now a historic $40 trillion. The interest alone on that debt costs all of us more than $1 trillion per year. Sen. Collins and her party contributed the most to this reality. Our children and grandchildren will be shackled to this debt for decades.

Tariffs, tax cuts, wars and the subsequent debt mean we’ll be paying for Sen. Collins’ tenure through reduced economic opportunity, less ability to face a future crisis and less capacity to invest in aging infrastructure and other critical needs, dwarfing by far anything the senator has secured for Maine.       

If the billionaires get their way, they’ll have the best senator money can buy. The country may never recover from more Republican control of the Senate.   

Mary Ann Larson
Bangor