I sent this as an op-ed to the Portland Press Herald but have no delusion they will ACK it or post even a small part of it.
As a longtime Mainer and independent voter, I have watched Senator Susan Collins’ career with cautious optimism, hoping her self-branded image as a moderate willing to cross party lines might translate into principled leadership. Instead, the first six weeks of 2025 have crystallized a painful truth: Collins has become a hollow figurehead, enabling the most destructive elements of Donald Trump’s agenda while abandoning the Mainers she swore to represent. Her recent actions—from rubber-stamping unconstitutional power grabs to greenlighting devastating cuts to healthcare—demand either immediate course correction or resignation.
Collins’ vote to confirm Russell Vought as White House budget director epitomizes her moral bankruptcy. Vought, architect of the “Project 2025” blueprint to concentrate unchecked executive power, openly advocates allowing presidents to ignore congressionally approved spending—a direct threat to Collins’ own role as Senate Appropriations Chair. Her justification—“Presidents deserve broad discretion”—ignores that Vought’s ideology undermines the Constitution’s separation of powers. This is not moderation; it is complicity in authoritarian overreach.
Her tepid opposition to Trump’s FBI director nominee, Kash Patel, further exposes her impotence. While Collins criticized Patel’s “aggressive political activity”, her lone dissent failed to sway colleagues, allowing confirmation of a man who published an “enemies list” of federal employees. Maine deserved a leader who marshals bipartisan resistance to such extremism, not symbolic gestures devoid of consequence.
Collins’ support for the Senate GOP’s February 2025 budget framework reveals her allegiance to party over constituents. The bill slashes $300 billion from Medicaid—a lifeline for 400,000 Mainers, including rural hospitals already teetering on collapse. Her vote alongside Josh Hawley to reject amendments protecting Medicaid contradicts her 2024 boasts about healthcare funding. This hypocrisy will have dire consequences: Maine’s elderly, disabled, and low-income families face reduced coverage, while hospitals risk closure under reimbursement cuts.
Equally alarming is her silence as Trump’s administration weaponizes budget processes to dismantle agencies. Despite chairing Appropriations, Collins has done nothing to stop Elon Musk’s illegal shutdown of USAID offices in February 2025—a move that locked employees out of critical systems. When asked about Musk’s unconstitutional spending freezes, she offered only vague hopes for judicial intervention. Mainers deserve a fighter, not a bystander.
Collins’ failures are not newfound. Her 2020 defense of Trump’s catastrophic COVID-19 response—claiming he “did a lot right”—ignored his months of denial that left Maine vulnerable. Her 2022 vote to confirm Justice Brett Kavanaugh, despite his role in overturning Roe v. Wade, shattered trust with pro-choice Mainers. Now, as constituent letters flood newspapers pleading for accountability, Collins remains aloof, refusing town halls for over two decades.
Her 2025 appropriations role compounds these betrayals. While securing $5 million for wood heaters, she overlooks existential threats: the Kennebec River dredging project, critical for Navy destroyers, remains underfunded, jeopardizing Bath Iron Works jobs. Meanwhile, her committee advances Trump’s deportation raids and education cuts, policies anathema to Maine’s values.
Collins faces a choice: justify her actions with substance or step aside. If she believes slashing Medicaid strengthens Maine, let her hold a town hall in Biddeford and explain it to families relying on insulin coverage. If Musk’s USAID shutdowns align with constitutional duty, let her debate Angus King on live television. Absent such accountability, her continued presence in office insults Mainers’ intelligence.
The 2026 election looms, with forecasters already labeling her seat a toss-up. But Maine cannot wait. We need leaders who prioritize people over political survival, who confront power rather than coddling it. Susan Collins has forfeited that mantle. It is time for her to reclaim it—or make way for someone who will.
Cruel And Vindictive By Design
(This post originally published on 47 Watch)
Recent administrative changes at the Social Security Administration (SSA) reveal a concerning pattern of decisions that disproportionately impact vulnerable populations while being implemented in ways that limit public awareness and oversight. Two specific policy reversals highlight this trend: the reinstatement of 100% benefit withholding for overpayments and the termination of “Enumeration at Birth” contracts in several states.
The Overpayment Recovery Rate Reversal
On March 7, 2025, the SSA quietly announced it would revert to withholding 100% of monthly benefits from recipients with overpayments, effective March 27, 2025. This reverses a significant reform implemented just one year prior, in March 2024, when the agency reduced the default withholding rate from 100% to 10% of monthly benefits.
The 2024 reform had been implemented specifically to prevent vulnerable beneficiaries from facing homelessness or inability to pay for basic necessities when their entire benefit was withheld. As former Commissioner Martin O’Malley stated, the previous practice was “unconscionable” when it left people “facing homelessness or unable to pay bills, because Social Security withheld their entire payment for recovery of an overpayment.”
Data from the SSA showed the 2024 policy change had measurable positive impacts:
While beneficiaries can still appeal for hardship waivers to reduce the withholding rate, the appeals process now faces significant delays — reportedly up to 200 days due to staffing shortages at SSA offices. This administrative bottleneck creates a de facto policy of 100% withholding for extended periods, even for those who would qualify for reduced rates.
Acting Commissioner Lee Dudek has framed the reversal as fulfilling the agency’s “significant responsibility to be good stewards of the trust funds for the American people,” estimating the change would increase overpayment recoveries by approximately $7 billion over the next decade.
The Enumeration at Birth Contract Terminations
In a separate but similarly concerning move, the SSA terminated “Enumeration at Birth” contracts with several states, including Maine, in February 2025. These contracts, which had been operating efficiently since 1980, allowed parents to register newborns for Social Security numbers through a simple automated hospital process.
The termination means parents must now physically visit Social Security offices with their newborns and documentation to apply for numbers — a significant burden in rural states like Maine with sparse populations and limited SSA offices. After public backlash and pressure from congressional representatives, Acting Commissioner Dudek issued an apology and claimed he would “reinstate” the contracts.
However, as numerous administrative experts have pointed out, federal contracts cannot simply be “reinstated” after termination. The entire contracting process must start over, which is:
Notably, the contracts were terminated in six states, all of which have Democratic representatives in Congress, suggesting potential political targeting. Maine’s governer — Janet Mills — is also embroiled in a fight with Trump and his administration over rights of transgender citizens.
The terminations were supposedly conducted to save money (approximately $77,000 for a five-year contract base), but will likely result in higher administrative costs, less efficient service delivery, and more work for already-strained Social Security offices.
The Pattern of Administrative Weaponization
Both policy changes share several concerning characteristics:
Disproportionate impact on vulnerable populations: Both changes primarily affect those least equipped to navigate bureaucratic hurdles — elderly and disabled beneficiaries in the case of overpayments, and new parents in rural areas for the Enumeration at Birth terminations.
Administrative roadblocks to relief: While both policies theoretically offer pathways for relief (appeals for overpayment withholding, visiting SSA offices for birth enumeration), administrative realities like extended processing times and limited office locations create de facto barriers.
Questionable fiscal justifications: Both changes are justified as fiscal responsibility measures, yet both may ultimately cost more in administrative overhead and downstream social costs than they save.
Appearance of political targeting: The pattern of states affected by the Enumeration at Birth terminations, along with reports of partisan “hotlines” to expedite certain cases, suggests potentially politically motivated implementation.
These administrative changes highlight how consequential policy shifts can occur not through legislative action but through bureaucratic decisions that receive little public attention or congressional oversight. As these policies take effect in the coming weeks, their impact on vulnerable Social Security beneficiaries and new parents will become increasingly apparent.