Ad encourages GOP senator to vote ‘no’ on tax bill

A liberal group has launched an advertisement in Maine encouraging Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) to vote against Senate Republicans’ tax-reform proposal. 

NBC News reported that the group, Not One Penny, began airing its first ad in Maine on Saturday. It will be the first in a series of ads by the group to air in a number of states. 

Collins, a moderate Republican who has bucked her party in other high-profile votes this year, has already voiced misgivings about the Senate GOP’s current plan to overhaul the tax code, particularly a provision in the bill that would do away with the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate requiring Americans to purchase health insurance.

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She has said she believes that the bill should not combine tax policy with health-care policy, and that by repealing the individual mandate, lawmakers could cause premiums to skyrocket. 

The measure cleared a party-line vote in the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday — the same day that House Republicans approved their version of the tax-reform legislation.

The Senate bill would make tax cuts outlined in the House measure temporary, and would delay proposed corporate tax rate cuts for one year.

Republicans hold a 52-seat majority in the Senate, meaning they can only afford two GOP defections in order to pass it. Already, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) has indicated that he will not support the current version of the bill, and several others, including Collins, have voiced concerns about the measure.

Collins joined Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) earlier this year in voting against a slimmed-down ObamaCare repeal measure, bucking party lines and dealing a blow to the GOP’s efforts to do away with the health-care law.