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Sen. Susan Collins did not vote for President Donald Trump’s signature piece of legislation, his so-called Big Beautiful Bill, a massive package of tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans financed by slashing an estimated $1 trillion from Medicaid.
“I did the right thing for the people of Maine, and I am proud of my no vote,” Collins told a local outlet after the bill passed in July.
But before she voted against it, Collins cast a critical vote to advance the legislation, which is projected to kick at least 10 million people off their health insurance —and she cast that vote just one day after private equity billionaire Steve Schwarzman, the chair of the Blackstone Group and a man who will personally reap huge rewards from the bill, kicked in $2 million toward her reelection effort.
On June 27, Schwarzman gave $2 million to Pine Tree Results PAC, a Super PAC backing Collins; on June 28, Collins cast a decisive vote allowing Trump’s bill to advance to the floor. The vote was 51-49. Vice President J.D. Vance was present at the Capitol, on hand to break a tie, but was not needed after Collins voted in favor of the bill.
The bill went on to pass the Senate just a few days later, to Schwarzman’s presumed delight, since the legislation both extended the pass-through business deduction — treasured by the owners of private equity firms — and made it permanent, allowing partnerships to deduct 20 percent of their pretax income. Blackstone did not respond to a request for comment.
Ahead of the vote, the watchdog Americans for Financial Reform sent a letter urging senators to let the loophole, which was set to sunset in 2025, expire. “Pass-through income is heavily concentrated at the top, with nearly two-thirds of the deduction going to households earning over $410,000 and more than half captured by those making above $1 million,” the group wrote.
A separate provision in the legislation made the use of private jets for business a tax write-off, another boon for both Schwarzman, a private-jet owner himself, and his firm, which has large investments in the private-jet companies, including Signature Aviation Plc, which the firm purchased for $4.7 billion in 2021.
Collins’ office strenuously objected to the idea that Schwarzman’s contribution influenced her decision to advance the bill. “The notion that Sen. Collins’ vote to proceed somehow helped Blackstone get this bill across the finish line is absurd. The procedural vote passed with 51 Republican Senators voting yes … As a matter of basic arithmetic, the motion to proceed would have passed without her vote,” press secretary Blake Kernen wrote in an emailed statement. “Neither of her votes had anything to do with any financial support her Super PAC received. The Super PAC is separate from the campaign operation (like all Super PACs) so the senator was not aware of this contribution until after the FEC report was filed.”
The June vote was not the first time that Collins cast an important vote that happened to benefit Schwarzman. Back in November 2017, when Trump was pushing through his first round of tax cuts for the wealthy, Collins proposed an amendment to make child care more affordable, by making changes to the private equity industry’s beloved carried interest loophole. (The tax break is particularly precious to Schwarzman, who once compared an effort to increase tax on carried interest to the Nazi invasion of Poland.)
Reporting from ProPublica revealed that Collins dropped the amendment a day after first floating it, and she went on to support the bill, which passed the chamber, by another razor-thin margin: 51-49. At the time, Collins’ spokesperson told ProPublica she dropped the amendment because of opposition from other Republicans and Democrats, and her belief that she wouldn’t have been able to persuade enough of her colleagues to pass it.
After Collins voted in favor of that bill, Schwarzman — and the private equity industry — backed her reelection in a big way. Schwarzman donated $2 million to a Super PAC that supported Collins’ 2020 reelection, and he and his wife both gave maximum individual contributions to her campaign. That year, private equity executives gave more to Collins than almost any other senator.
