Sen Susan Collins leads the vote to reject the Trump-Vance administration’s proposed termination of all efforts to prevent HIV (and more)

To be perfectly honest, we have always been wary of Susan Collins.  She is the Republican Senator from Maine who is probably the most liberal member of her Party in the Senate.  With such a slim majority, she has a vital vote that can make or break the introduction of new Laws. Naturally, we love her when she votes with the Democrats, but there are other occasions when she talks the talk BUT doesn’t walk the walk.

She is the senior Senator from Maine and has been in the Senate since 1996, and has been reelected every 6 years since. She does gets brownie points for being a rare Republican who is not cowed by The Orange Buffon and has voted against two of his signature legislative achievements this year — the domestic policy megabill and the measure to claw back $9 billion in foreign aid and public media funding.

This year she was appointed Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee and last week she led the other members  (it has a Republican majority) to reject the Trump-Vance administration’s proposed termination of the CDC’s HIV prevention and surveillance efforts and its call for a 40 percent reduction in NIH funding. If it had passed it would have eliminated the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Housing Opportunities for Persons With AIDS initiative and cut funding or block grants for prevention efforts focused on hepatitis, other STIs, and tuberculosis.

They preserved parts of the administration’s budget that had maintained funding for HIV prevention, care, treatment, and PrEP programs — including $542 million for the Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative that was launched during Trump’s first term, and most of the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program.  For this we are deeply indebted  to her and her colleagues on the Committee.

Collins has voted in line with The Orange Buffoon nearly 96 percent of the time but he still wants to find someone to challenge her in the election in two years time.  With him its 100% or nothing.