Collins. She was first elected to the senate in 1996. Democratic candidate is Shenna Bellows, the former executive director of the American Civil Liberties union. She has not held elective office. Welcome to you both. In the first segment, we are going to tackle broad topics. We are going to devote 45 minutes to each topic. We hope you will articulate your position as well as your differences with each other. Shenna, the number one concern of our listeners and viewers is people are concerned about maines economy and jobs. What will you do to improve the economy and jobs . Thank you for hosting this. It is wonderful to be here in bangor. As i walked across maine, 350 miles, the number one issue that people said was jobs and the economy. I walked three miles. A farmer talked about investment in infrastructure. He sells heirloom potatoes across the country, but it takes him 20 minutes to get online. He said if we had broadband access, people like him could grow their businesses. People could connect with the global economy. Infrastructure is number one. Also, a fair tax and regulatory environment. What will you do to create better paying jobs . I talked to employers all over the state. I find there are jobs available, but often there is a difficult time finding the employees that have the skills and education needed for those jobs. Nationwide, about a third of the Unemployment Rate is due to that gap in skills. I have been a strong supporter of a bill which got incorporated which would bring together employers, employees, educational institutions, local workforces to identify the jobs of today and tomorrow. And the skills and education needed to ensure our workers have the skills they need. That is something where the federal government can be very helpful. You can to go into a machinists shop in the state and not find that they have vacancies. Those are good jobs with benefits and pay. I have also found that businesses are hoping for certainty any tax code and regulatory policy. We have incentives on one year and off the next. That keeps Small Businesses from investing and hiring. We need transportation improvements in the state. I am fortunate to be the ranking republican on the transportation appropriations subcommittee. I have been able to secure some 9 million in grants to refurbish our railroads, roads, and ports. I also agree with my opponent that we do need to invest in broadband. That is important in terms of allowing businesses to locate in rural maine. One of the areas where i am most proud is getting the trucks onto the interstates and out of downtown street and country roads. That has allowed businesses to ship products more efficiently. Increase safety. Lower energy use. It has reduced emissions. Moving onto a topic important to businesses and homeowners, energy costs. Maine is the most Oil Dependent state in the nation. It is very expensive or prohibitive for many people to heat their homes. This question goes to you, senator collins. What policies will you pursue to reduce the cost of burden . This has been a problem for our state. One of the policies i have pursued in washington is making sure we are increasing investment in Energy Efficiency programs and weatherization. I have been a supporter of the low Income Heating Assistance Program which has supported many families, help them stay warm in the winter. Weatherization is a better investment because it prevents the heating dollars from going out. The uninsulated doors and walls. I believe we need to get more natural gas into the state. There is a real bottleneck with the pipelines we need to get natural gas from pennsylvania, where it is plentiful, into the state of maine to help manufacturers as well as residents. That would make a big difference in our energy costs, particularly electricity. Finally, we need to pursue alternative energy. I am interested in the deepwater offshore energy, the wind energy, that a consortium of private companies and the university have worked on. That holds great promise. It helps create thousands of good paying jobs. Ultimately, we could be a net exporter of energy to the east coast. Shenna bellows, what is your Energy Strategy to relieve the high cost burden . We need bold visionary investment in Renewable Energy to reduce longterm cost. To tackle Climate Change now, which is a real threat to our state and country. We should be investing in solar, geothermal, title, wind, and biomass. Solar, for example, germany is a world leader. There is less usable solar sunlight falling on germany. Maine could be a world leader in Renewable Energy. That would reduce energy costs in the long run. President obamas Affordable Care been in place for about a year. We have seen the exchanges at work and a Supreme Court decision, affirming the legality. Shenna bellows, do you support the act . I support universal health care for all. We should strengthen and expand the Affordable Care act to cover more people. We can do that by gradually lowering the medicare eligibility age. By medicaid expansion, which susan has vetoed five times. When he to fix the provisions of the Affordable Care act that have created a burden for individuals and Small Businesses. We can move toward universal health care for all. A Home Health Care nurse sees firsthand what happens we can do that with universal health care. You mentioned maine opting out of the expansion of medicaid, excuse me. As senator, would you push to make that mandatory, that states expand . I would push for unicode parcel universal medicaid expansion. We save money in the long run if we expand primary Health Care Access for all. Susan collins, do you support changing the Affordable Care act . I do support changing the Affordable Care act. I think there was a real missed opportunity here. There are a lot of Health Care Reforms that both republicans and democrats embrace. For example, both hearties are for prohibiting Insurance Companies from discriminating against individuals with preexisting conditions. Both parties are for tax credits for Small Businesses to make it easier for them to afford insurance. Both parties are for letting young people, which comprise the Largest Group of the uninsured, stay on their parents policies until age 26. I think it is unfortunate that it devolved into such a person debate when there were some any issues we could have worked on together. There are some provisions i think are particularly problematic. In some cases, it has led to fewer choices. I have heard from families in maine who no longer are able to go to the physician may have used their whole lives because it is outside of the network of plans available under obamacare. I have seen higher premiums for Small Businesses and higher copays and deductibles. They have been there have been billions of dollars in additional fees and taxes imposed by the law, not to mention the money taken out of the underfunded medicare to pay for it. I have introduced bipartisan bills to change the law. One has to do with the definition of a fulltime worker. The definition of a fulltime worker has always been 40 hours a week. Under obamacare, it is 30 hours a week to read the result of that has been felt in bangor. The superintendent says she has to cap the number of hours a week that substitute teachers can teach because otherwise they are going to have to come into the system and be covered by obamacare. Think about that. That means they are getting lower paychecks. The students are having a revolving door of substitutes. I dont that is good policy. Is going to create confusion when it goes fully into effect. I have a bipartisan bill that would change the definition back to 40 hours a week. Even the president has indicated there have been problems in the area. The other problem is that there is a mandate that an employer with 50 or more employees have to comply with all the if they are at 48 or 49 employees, they are never going to hire that 50th employee. Because they dont want to have to deal with all of the mandates and paperwork that come with obamacare. Susan collins, do you support president obamas current policies to deal with isis and other groups . If not, what should u. S. Policy be . I support some of the president s policies. Putting together a Coalition Including arab nations in the region to fight isis and other groups was a good approach. Where i have some concerns about the president s policy, and i have talked to him directly about this, is whether he is going to be able to have a successful vetting of the socalled moderate Syrian Opposition. Three years ago, we could identify who were the moderates in the Syrian Opposition to the assad regime. Now, the opposition is infiltrated. I am worried some of the training equipment and arms will end up in the hands of isis. I think the president was too slow to come up with a policy to confront isis. Isis is not the only threat we face. Al qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is considered most likely to launch an attack on our homeland. That is very worrisome. That is where al qaedas chief bomb maker is. We also have a group in egypt. We have seen a proliferation of terrorist groups. They are now operating in 20 countries. I think the president s reassurances to us that he has estimated core al qaeda have turned out unfortunately not to be the case. Shenna bellows, do you support president obamas current policies . What do you support and not support about that . Isis did not exist in its current form prior to the invasion of iraq under president bush, which susan voted for. We are seeing the product of a misguided policy, a war that cost us over 1 trillion and sent troops in harms way. We are less safe today than we were a decade ago. She voted with the republicans. It was a bipartisan effort but it was wrong. Unfortunately, we do see the dangerous and barbaric rights of isis. I dont think the right approach is arming the Syrian Rebels. Groups whose goals we do not share. Who may be our opponents in five years or 10. 20 get was irresponsible for susan to vote to authorize arming the rebels and the airstrikes. It has strengthened the hand of the assad regime, which has not traditionally been an ally. I think we need a more targeted and strategic approach to Foreign Policy. President obama showed the way when he did what president bush failed to do. When he killed Osama Bin Laden and significantly weakened al qaeda with a targeted and strategic special forces operation. That is the kind of Foreign Policy we need. I think we are in the wrong track. We are continuing down this path toward overseas wars we cannot afford that make our country less safe. Would you like to respond . You guessed correctly i would like to respond. Isis is just al qaeda in iraq by another name. It has grown in sophistication. Just because it changed its name does not mean it did not exist. This violent islamic extremist ideology was reflected in the attacks on the World Trade Center in 1993. In the bombings in africa of two of our embassies in tanzania. And in nairobi. And the horrendous terrorist attacks in 2001. Which claim in nearly 3000 lives. All of those clearly preceded the iraq war. To say that this extremist ideology developed in the wake of the war in iraq is wrong. That is not what i said. What i said, is that it was a mistake to arm islamic extremists in the middle east. We see chaos that is the product of the wrong Foreign Policy. Susan has been in office 18 years and backed overseas military intervention again and again. It has cost taxpayers over 1 trillion that we could have invested here. People are very nervous about the Ebola Outbreak, whether it may spread in the u. S. And how horrible it can get in africa. Is the Obama Administration doing enough to combat the spread of the disease both in the u. S. And africa . What we need to do is to stop the epidemic where it is in west africa with an increase in aid to countries in west africa. What we do not need is a travel ban like my opponent suggested. Experts say it would make us less safe by limiting the ability to get relief to west africa. By eliminating the ability to monitor travel back to this country. The lack of preparedness now that the main state Nurses Association and nurses across the country are talking about, that is a direct result of republican votes for sequestration. A bill that susan voted for has undermined funding for the cdc and nih. The director said they were not able to develop the ebola vaccine and the funding, they might have been able to develop the vaccine. Susan collins, what is your ideal response to the Ebola Outbreak . It has to be a comprehensive approach. We do need to increase preparedness at our hospitals. The president requested additional funding, which i strongly supported read which we voted on right before we adjourned. My opponent has said she would have opposed the bill that included that funding that was essential to fight the ebola crisis. We also need to establish Regional Centers to treat people with ebola in this country. It is not feasible to expect each one of the 5000 hospitals in this country to have the resources, the expertise, the gear, the knowhow to deal with this epidemic. I support a limited travel ban from the three african countries in western africa most affected with an exception for healthcare workers and aid workers. We dont want to turn our back on africa, but my First Priority is to protect americans. Just yesterday, the Obama Administration announced travel restrictions, saying people with travel originating in those countries could only arrived at five american airports where they would be carefully screened. I want to tell you what the president said about that. The president s press secretary said president obama changed his view on travel restrictions after hearing from scientists and other experts. The scientists and experts recommended to the president that he put these restrictions in place. I am glad he did. Today, the administration went further and said individuals coming from these countries should be monitored by the federal government for 21 days to make sure they do not have this highly contagious disease. Until this epidemic is under control, i think the steps the president has taken make sense. I will let you respond. The American Association of medical colleges wrote a letter a few weeks ago to senators. It says we need to get away from these shortterm crises and invest in longterm Public Health. The bill that passed just before session was an emergency bill to army Syrian Rebels and engage in airstrikes. I said im concerned about arming Syrian Rebels. I think what we need instead is instead of republican obstructionism, which got us the sequester that underfunded the cdc, we need to be more strategic and visionary. Invest in the Public Health system, not just in a crisis but over time. Would you like to respond . The bill we passed included 88 million to fight this crisis. She said very clearly on her website that she would have voted against it. In addition, the administration has said the funding the cdc had was adequate to deal with this crisis. There have not been huge cuts in the cdc. Nor in the agency which was created in the wake of the anthrax attacks that occurred in 2001. Both have been adequately funded, according to the administrations own experts. We will try to squeeze in one more question. Susan collins, congress is likely to tackle Immigration Reform soon. What are your views on whether the system needs to change . Our immigration system is clearly broken. I support comprehensive Immigration Reform. Right before the recess, we went to the southern border where we talked with teenagers and children coming across the border. More than 60,000 of them have arrived in this country from central america. That clearly shows we do not have good control of our border. So we need to have Strong Border control. We also need to have a plan to deal with the 12 Million People who are here illegally. It is not practical to somehow round them up and ship them back to their home countries. I think what we need to do is distinguish between those who stood in line and got here legally versus those who came here illegally. That is why i have supported the Immigration Reform bill that required them to be requires them to pay their taxes, pay a fine, learn english. A series of requirements before they would be allowed to stay and eventually work toward citizenship. My grandparents are immigrants. My grandpa came from france. He went to college and started his own business, became an entrepreneur. My grandmother came from scotland. I think it is important, we are a nation of immigrants. We can agree the system is broken. We need comprehensive reform to create a path to citizenship for people who come here for a better life to make america what it represents. That end is the first