On tax day, billionaires rewarded Collins with Park Avenue fundraiser

While Mainers were sending off their yearly tax filings on Monday, Sen. Susan Collins was in Manhattan, attending a cocktail party fundraiser for her re-election campaign at the $32 million Park Avenue apartment of offshore drilling magnate Andrew Tisch.

In an emailed invitation obtained by campaign finance watchdog The Center for Public Integrity, Tisch asked attendees to contribute the maximum $5,600 each to Collins’ reelection campaign, which has already raised $3.8 million from mostly wealthy, out-of-state donors. The event was organized by No Labels, a group that claims to promote bipartisanship. It receives most of its funding from Fortune 500 executives and other deep-pocketed donors, according to a Daily Beast investigation published in December.

Andrew Tisch, left, at a Park Avenue “Power Breakfast” with Republican New York City mayoral candidate Joe Lhota. (Photo by Andy Kropa/Getty Images)

This year Americans are being taxed under a new Republican law, to which Collins lent critical support, which gave significant tax breaks to large corporations and wealthy individuals.

Tisch’s multi-billion dollar conglomerate, Loews Corporation, which owns Diamond Offshore Drilling, CNA Financial Corporation, Boardwalk Pipeline Partners and Loews Hotels, among other companies, has benefited significantly from the new law, boasting of a one-time net gain of $200 million due to the reduction in taxes on its deferred assets on top of a permanent 40 percent cut to its corporate tax rate.

Fossil fuel companies like Tisch’s are some of the biggest beneficiaries of the Republican tax plan.

“We can’t afford to see her lose,” Tisch wrote to his fellow donors.

Tisch has a long and checkered corporate past. He previously served as CEO of the Lorillard Tobacco Company and in 1994 testified before Congress that cigarettes are not addictive or proven to cause cancer.

His companies have previously used other methods to avoid U.S. taxes, including operating international drilling rigs through a Cayman Island subsidiary.

While Tisch’s taxes decreased this year and will continue to be cut over the next decade, the poorest 60 percent of Collins’ Maine constituents can expect to see an average tax hike of $310 within the next ten years because of the new law.

Linda Homer of Southwest Harbor protests Sen. Collins’ tax vote on Monday. (Photo: Homer/Twitter)

Indivisible groups held rallies outside Collins’ senate offices across the state on Monday to remind Mainers of her support for the tax bill, which also rolled back portions of the Affordable Care Act, raising health care costs for millions of Americans.

“We pay taxes because we have an obligation to contribute our fair share to the running and maintenance of our country,” said Jo Trafford, a retired teacher who joined a protest outside Collins’ office in Portland on Monday. “By contributing our fair share we have the absolute right to demand that every worker and corporation pay their fair share.”

Most Americans seem to have similar concerns, with only about one third of voters approving of the GOP tax changes in national polls.

“It is clear now that the new GOP tax bill only benefits corporations and the wealthiest Americans,” said Kati Bolduc, an ed tech from Milford who joined a similar demonstration outside Collins’ Bangor office. “All that we protested about last year has come to be and is hurting the people who need help the most.”

Top photo: Collins outside the Park Avenue apartment of Andrew Tisch.