GOP: “Maine Sen. Susan Collins earlier this year decided to stay in her job instead of running for governor because she thought she could play a decisive role at a consequential time for the Senate.
Last week, as her Republican colleagues inched toward passage of a $1.4 trillion tax bill, she tested that theory and brokered some of the most significant last-minute changes to the measure in exchange for her vote.
Ms. Collins managed to make changes equal to a tenth of the net $1.4 trillion tax cuts in the bill by preserving some tax deductions, expanding others and protecting a retirement-contribution exclusion, based on data from the Joint Committee on Taxation.
She won inclusion of an amendment that would return the medical-expense deduction to pre-Affordable Care Act levels for two years. She also got Republican tax writers to back down from an attempt to stop elementary-school teachers and others from putting more money into retirement accounts than what other types of taxpayers may set aside.
The biggest-ticket item was her battle to preserve a property-tax deduction of up to $10,000, the elimination of which would have brought in $148.4 billion in revenue.”
-Siobhan Hughes, “With Tax Overhaul, Susan Collins Stretches Her Political Powers,” The Wall Street Journal online, Dec. 8, 2017 05:30am