What Collins brings home and what her votes cost Maine

Bringing money home is part of the job. What happens to Maine is the real test.

Senator Susan Collins likes to point to the federal dollars she brings home to Maine. Those investments matter, but they are not unique to Senator Collins.

Every member of Maine’s congressional delegation works to secure federal funding for the state. Maine would continue to have two senators and two representatives doing that work regardless of who occupies a particular Senate seat.

Comparing Maine’s two senators, Senator Collins secured approximately $229 million more in congressionally directed spending than Senator Angus King between 2022 and 2024. That’s a meaningful difference, but it is a far cry from the $1.5 billion Senator Collins has taken credit for, and it tells us little about whether Maine is actually better off.

Federal policy is not a game of simply counting checks received, but about whether the policies enacted by Congress make life better or worse for the people those senators represent. And that distinction matters enormously when it comes to last year’s Republican “One Big Beautiful” budget bill, HR 1.

The vote that mattered isn’t just the final vote

Senator Collins has a legitimate counterargument to criticism of HR 1: she ultimately voted against the final bill. But that is not the whole story.

Before the final vote, Senator Collins cast a key procedural vote that allowed the legislation to move forward. That vote mattered because HR 1 could not become law without first clearing the procedural hurdles necessary to advance it through the Senate. In other words, a senator’s record cannot be measured only by the final roll call. The votes that determine whether legislation or nominees get to the final roll call matter, too.

This is particularly important in evaluating Senator Collins’ broader record in Washington. At critical moments, she has supported procedural steps that allow major pieces of the Trump administration’s agenda to advance, even when she ultimately votes against the final legislation or a later stage of the process.

That can create a politically useful distinction: the vote that makes the policy possible can be separated from the vote that creates the headline. The result is Senator Collins can point to her final opposition while also pointing to the concessions she negotiated along the way.

Both things can be true. But for Maine, what matters is the outcome.

Medicaid: billions lost, and a temporary fund can’t make it whole

Maine is expected to lose approximately $2.7 billion in federal Medicaid funding over the next decade, including roughly $1.1 billion affecting rural communities.

During negotiations over HR 1, Senator Collins fought to create and expand a new Rural Health Transformation Program (RHTP). The program ultimately provided $50 billion nationally over five years, and Maine received $190 million for its first year. Over the life of the program, Maine should expect around $950 million. If RHTP funds were meant to compensate for the Medicaid cuts, they come around $1.7 billion short for the state as a whole and $150 million for rural areas.

However, the health care providers losing $2.7 billion in Medicaid payments will not see all the $950 million. Because states can only spend 15% of their RHTP funds on direct provider payments for services, no more than $142.5 million would replace those lost Medicaid payments. Other funds may reach rural hospitals for things like efficiency and transportation improvements, but 85% of RHTP funding is not guaranteed to go to hospitals.

But the rural health funding does not change the underlying math. The loss of Medicaid funding is significantly more than any funding Maine will receive from the rural health fund and the harms to people and communities are clear. Medicaid is not simply a federal grant program that can be replaced project by project. MaineCare provides ongoing payments that support hospitals, nursing homes, doctors, behavioral health providers, and other parts of the health care system. When that ongoing funding is reduced, people lose coverage and hospitals and other providers lose revenue.

Maine’s rural hospitals are particularly vulnerable. Medicaid expansion helped improve hospital finances by reducing uncompensated care. Between 2018 and 2024, Maine hospitals’ charity care declined by approximately $80 million¹. When 31,000 Mainers lose Medicaid coverage, some of those costs will return to hospitals.

This is a clear example where a senator can successfully negotiate resources to help one part of Maine weather a federal cut while Maine is still substantially worse off overall.

SNAP: Maine pays more while families receive less

Maine will lose approximately $1.1 billion² in SNAP assistance over the next decade. At the same time, HR 1 requires Maine to take on a greater share of the cost of administering and providing SNAP benefits. Maine’s share of benefit costs could reach approximately $94 million over the next two years. And costs would potentially rise substantially during a recession, when more Mainers need food assistance and state revenues are under pressure.

That creates a fiscal trap for Maine.

The federal government reduces benefits and shifts more of the remaining cost to the state. Maine taxpayers are left to absorb the difference, while families have less help putting food on the table. And the impact doesn’t stop with SNAP recipients.

SNAP benefits also support local businesses. Research estimates that every $1 in SNAP spending generates $1.54 in economic activity. When billions in food assistance disappear, local grocery stores and other businesses lose customers and communities lose economic activity.

For rural communities, where grocery stores are already under pressure, that can mean fewer customers, fewer stores, and fewer options for families.

Clean-energy investment: less investment, higher bills

HR 1 also curtailed clean-energy tax credits, putting hundreds of billions of dollars in planned investment at risk nationwide. In Maine, approximately $5.3 billion in planned clean-energy investment is at risk. Based on cancellation rates seen nationally, Maine could lose approximately $325 million in investment.That means fewer projects, fewer jobs, less economic activity, and higher costs for households. Maine families could pay approximately $80 more for electricity because of reduced clean-energy investment. Across Maine households, that amounts to more than $600 million in additional costs over 10 years

For a state already struggling with some of the nation’s highest energy burdens, that is not a theoretical concern. It means more money going heat the house and pay the electric bill.

Winners and losers: the problem with governing by earmark

The politics of “bringing money home” obscures the bigger picture.

Imagine two neighboring Maine towns. One receives a federal grant for a new fire truck. The senator can point to the project, stand beside the truck, and rightly say: I helped bring this money home. Meanwhile, the town next door is struggling to maintain its existing fire station because its residents are facing higher costs and greater pressure on the public services they depend on.

One hospital receives federal funding for a particular project. Another hospital loses revenue because Medicaid coverage and payments decline.

One family gets help paying for a procedure. Thousands of other families lose coverage or face higher costs.

One community receives a targeted federal investment while communities across the state lose billions in Medicaid and SNAP resources.

Investments in communities matter, but targeted appropriations cannot substitute for strong federal policies that provide sustainable resources to all Maine communities.

Six years of appropriations can’t make up for policies that take more away

Senator Collins can work hard to bring appropriations home to Maine. And she should. But Maine should also ask what those appropriations are worth if the federal policies being enacted simultaneously take far more away.

Over her most recent term, Senator Collins has secured approximately $1.5 billion in appropriations for Maine. At that pace, that would amount to roughly $2.5 billion over a decade. Combined with the $950 million from RHTP, Senator Collins brought roughly $3.5 billion to the state.

The Medicaid and SNAP losses and clean-energy investment at risk under HR 1 alone total more than $4.2 billion over the same period. That leaves Maine $700 million worse off. And these cuts were not enacted in isolation. They were part of a broader package that also delivers substantial tax benefits to wealthy households and large corporations.

Bringing federal money home to Maine is not enough.

And the comparison above looks only at several of the largest, quantifiable impacts of HR 1. It does not attempt to put a dollar value on every way federal policy under the Trump administration is making Maine families, businesses, and communities worse off.

Consider what is left out.

The expiration of the enhanced Affordable Care Act premium tax credits is expected to drive up health insurance costs for tens of thousands of Mainers. The rollback of clean-energy policies threatens additional investment and higher household costs. President Trump’s tariffs have raised costs for Maine businesses and consumers, with particularly significant consequences for communities and businesses connected to trade with Canada. And cuts to federal programs and the federal workforce have reduced resources and services on which Maine communities depend.

The administration’s actions in Maine and across the country have also created additional costs and uncertainty for families, communities, and institutions, including through immigration enforcement and other federal actions. These impacts are difficult to capture in a single balance sheet. But that does not make them less real.

And it underscores why the question of whether Senator Collins can bring federal dollars home is too narrow. A senator must also use their vote, their influence, and their leverage to make sure the federal government is making the people they represent better off, not taking more away than it gives.

Senator Collins can point to checks, but what are they worth compared with what her votes and her failure to act are costing Maine?