Sen. Susan Collins, whose support for a scaled-back stimulus bill broke a Republican filibuster and handed President Obama and the Democrats a political victory, isn't the most popular person in her chamber's GOP caucus right now.
Her support for the bill, she acknowledges, has come at a cost that has chilled relationships with some of her GOP colleagues, but that it was the right thing to do. "I believe this is truly a dire crisis," the Maine lawmaker told the Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel. "When we lose 600,000 jobs in one month and when unemployment in Maine is at a 16-year record high at 7 percent, and when each day brings reports of another loss of jobs in Maine and across the country, I don't believe a responsible reaction is to just say no."
She also touts the bipartisan efforts that went into the stimulus bill, citing six Republicans and 14 centrist Democrats who worked to scale back the bill after it left the House. "We were able to weed out of this bill $100 billion of spending, some of which may be worthwhile, but was not stimulative," she said.
Mrs. Collins, along with fellow senators Olympia Snowe, also from Maine, and Pennsylvania's Arlen Specter, provided the three critical votes that saved Mr. Obama from a setback on the central economic plank in his agenda. |