Snowe And Collins Speak Out About the Stimulus Bill
REPUBLICANS
Bangor Daily News
Drew FitzGerald
Boston University Washington News Service
Feb. 13, 2009
THIS IS AN INSERT FOR PAPER TO USE WITH WIRE STORY ON PASSAGE OF STIMULUS PACKAGE BILL.
WASHINGTON – Republican Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe are speaking out about their roles in shaping the $787 billion stimulus package that was scheduled to be voted on in the Senate late Friday night.
The bill passed the House Friday 246-183 with no Republicans voting for it. Maine’s members of the House, Democrats Mike Michaud of the 2nd Congressional District and Chellie Pingree of the 1st Congressional District, voted for the bill.
Snowe dismissed opposition to the final stimulus package as shortsighted.
“I don’t think they read the bill,” Snowe said in a telephone interview. “People who have criticized this package haven’t really focused on the individual pieces that are going to be critical in jumpstarting the economy.”
Pointing to more than $276 billion in tax relief for individual Americans and small businesses the Senate added to the bill, Snowe said her GOP colleagues “should be extremely enthusiastic” about the agreement.
Collins said she would like to see her party “succeed and prosper in all regions of the country,” but she said the GOP would need to appeal more to centrists if it wants to win races in states like Maine.
“We can’t just say ‘no,’” she said. “We need to present alternatives.”
Collins said she avoids looking at issues through a “narrow partisan lens” when her constituents see issues in a nonpartisan light.
“My constituents sent me to play a pivotal role, not to sit on the sidelines,” she said.
Representing a state that has long held a diverse mix of ideologies on government’s role in society, Snowe said she learned from her first three years in the state legislature to work with “whoever’s in the room” to enact laws.
“In all of my major decisions in my personal and political life, I ask myself this question: ‘What is the risk of not taking a position?’” she said. “I’m reluctant at this point to say, ‘No, we’ll wait it out. We have to do something.”
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