Priorities

Sen. Susan Collins on WGAN, Feb. 13, 2013:

An example would be [President Obama's] call for universal pre-Kindergarten for everybody. Great idea...but how is he going to pay for it?

New York Times, February 14, 2013:

In a report released last week, the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning research organization, estimated that providing preschool for all 3- and 4-year-olds would cost about $98.4 billion in federal spending over 10 years.

Bangor Daily News, Jan. 8, 2012:

The war in Iraq is officially over. The costs will go on...

Direct federal spending on the war through 2012 will reach $823 billion, surpassing the $738 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars the U.S. spent on the Vietnam War, the Congressional Research Service estimated in a March 29 report. Only World War II had a higher direct cost, $4.1 trillion, in current dollars.

Not counted in that is the interest of more than $200 billion the federal government has already had to pay on the resulting debt, said Linda Bilmes, a senior lecturer in public finance at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

Bilmes also estimates the price over the next 40 years of health care and disability compensation for veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts will be almost $1 trillion.

Portland Press Herald, Jan. 4, 2008

Sen. Susan Collins of Maine sharpened the distinction with her opponent in this year's election, Rep. Tom Allen, noting on Thursday that she remains opposed to any deadlines for withdrawing troops from Iraq.