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News and notes

👋 There's a new shotgun pairing at the top of Republican spending debates.

◉ U.S. Sen. Susan Collins has grabbed the gavel of the Senate Appropriations Committee, fulfilling a key promise of her 2020 reelection campaign and putting Maine in position to bring home more federal money. Then there is Elon Musk, who is co-leading the "Department of Government Efficiency" on behalf of President-elect Donald Trump.

◉ Plans change so often around Trump that it's hard to pin down what comes next. But Musk has begun recruiting billionaires and Silicon Valley types to spend long and unpaid hours analyzing government operations and suggesting cuts, according to a New York Times report. The goal is to find $2 trillion in cuts, but Musk downplayed that figure in an interview last week.

◉ Collins met with Musk in early December, but the two avoided talk of specific cuts. She has used interviews since then that have implicitly highlighted the places where they could agree and disagree.

◉ "I don't see where you would get that level of spending cuts, but I want to see specifically what they come forth with," she told News Center Maine earlier this month. "I think they're going to find that it's much more difficult than they anticipate."

◉ Last week, Collins told the BDN's Billy Kobin that the two agreed that it is harder for small companies — including some in Maine — to break into the defense procurement system. She also expects Musk to push for getting federal workers back to the office, something that Collins has been pressing on in recent years.

◉ There are real stakes in how Collins and Musk navigate each other. Last month, the billionaire tanked a consensus stopgap budget deal, forcing Republican negotiators to scramble for a new one. With six days until Inauguration Day, his new role in Trump's portfolio has yet to take its final form. Collins, as always, will want plentiful defense spending and lots of money to bring home.

What I'm reading

What I'm hearing

Responsibly sourced gossip from the halls of power.

💊 Here's what we know about prescription and ambulance taxes in the governor's budget.

◉ Politicians and lobbyists were still digesting Mills' two-year budget proposal on Monday. Legislative Republicans were digging deep into tax changes, hammering two in particular that got little attention in the governor's initial release.

◉ They are a new 70-cent tax on prescriptions that will be levied on pharmacies and a 6 percent tax on profit for certain ambulance providers. These are puzzling on the first read. However, they were explained in a budget document outlining health policy changes being proposed by Mills.

◉ Both taxes are allowed by the federal government and can be used to create revenue streams that unlock federal funding. In both cases, the administration expects to save the money with neutral effects on providers. The pharmacy change would save $6 million, according to Lindsay Hammes, a spokesperson for the Maine Department of Health and Human Services.

◉ But there is some reason for confusion here. I talked to two top advocates for pharmacists and ambulance services on Monday. Both said they were still digesting the proposal and had not gotten explanations from the state yet. We're likely to see responses soon from the affected industries.

What are you hearing? Send tips to mshepherd@bangordailynews.com.

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