“I am devastated that Senator Collins has chosen to side with corporate interests over Maine workers.”
“This is not the Susan Collins I voted for, and I frankly feel betrayed by her actions.”
As more details emerge surrounding the Trump administration’s dysfunctional response to the coronavirus pandemic, Mainers are making their voices heard, calling out Senator Susan Collins and President Trump’s failure to prepare us for this crisis.
Letter writers to papers across the state have highlighted Senator Collins’ consistent pattern of siding with corporate special interests over Maine’s working families, and a mother who has been forced to separate from her husband while he treats COVID-19 patients demanded an apology from Trump for his “negligence” in preparing for this pandemic.
Despite Senator Collins’ inaccurate claim that Trump “did a lot that was right in the beginning” of the coronavirus response, it’s clear that Mainers can see through her misleading statements.
Read More:
Wiscasset Newspaper: Allyson Lambert: Not Ready To Handle Pandemic
To make matters worse, just last week Senator Susan Collins voted against giving me, along with millions of other working families who work for large businesses, two weeks of paid sick leave. This would have been a godsend to both me and my grandmother whom I support, and I am devastated that Senator Collins has chosen to side with corporate interests over Maine workers. As of now I am unsure what the future will hold, currently I am making my last paycheck last as long as it can, and hoping that the state will step in before all is lost.
Portland Press Herald: Deirdre Sullivan: Feel Betrayed By Collins
For decades I respected Susan Collins, and believed that she had the best interests of working Mainers at heart. I saw her as a true representative of Maine, an independent who puts people over parties. However, over the past three years she has consistently failed to show courage by refusing to stand up to the pressures of the Republican Party. And this is especially evident now as we face the coronavirus crisis. [...] This is not the Susan Collins I voted for, and I frankly feel betrayed by her actions.
NBC News Think: Joy Engel: My husband is a doctor treating patients with coronavirus. So we said goodbye for a while.
I want an apology from the Trump administration for its negligence in preparing us for this pandemic and its suggestions last week that we ignore medical advice and roll back social distancing early. I want it to apologize to the state leaders who are left to make hard decisions with no leadership from the federal government — especially to my own governor, Janet Mills, whose calm and transparent handling of this crisis should serve as a model to other leaders across the nation.
Portland Press Herald: Doug Lynch: Marketplace will not save us from impact of COVID-19 crisis
It is not corporations and the free market that will save us, much less Susan Collins’ Big Pharma donors like Eli Lilly and the Sackler family. [...] Susan Collins’ consistent advocacy for these corporations over everyday Mainers, as most egregiously displayed in her Senate vote for the Republican tax scam in 2017, reveals her true priorities. Her efforts to remove over $800 million in pandemic preparation funding from the 2009 stimulus are directly linked to Trump’s current mismanagement of the virus response.
Seacoast Online: Barbara Treen: Susan Collins Voted Against Pandemic Funds In 2009
Susan Collins’ sincerity in her political ads touting her support for health issues is undermined by her very public vote in 2009 against $870 million dollars for pandemic funds as the H1N1 flu began. Her logic then was that investing in such preparedness was not good for the economy. Now that we find ourselves masked and quarantined, how many of us wish for a strong economy rather than our lives?
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