LEWISTON — After a campaign that’s left the country bitter and divided, U.S. Sen. Susan Collins offered four “achievable goals” Thursday to help heal the wounds and get the country moving in the right direction.

Calling it “a new agenda for America,” the four-term Republican said her proposal would draw support from Democrats as well as her own party. It would also demonstrate to a skeptical public that politicians in Washington can get something done, she said.

Her suggestions include rebuilding infrastructure, bolstering biomedical research, tax reform and an innovative approach to breaking the cycle of poverty that afflicts too many families across the country.

Collins told a breakfast gathering of the Lewiston Auburn Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce that she is also ready to lend her support to initiatives proposed locally.

She said the area has already “established itself as a great place to live and work and have fun” in recent years. Given that record of success, Collins said, “I know that you will produce a great return” on any projects that leaders in the area want to pursue.

Collins, who heads the transportation subcommittee of the Senate panel that appropriates funds, said one “intriguing plan” is to begin a train route between Lewiston and Montreal. She said it may prove too costly and ambitious, but it’s worth exploring.

With the election of Donald Trump and a Republican-controlled Congress, Collins said that the Affordable Care Act is going to get “a significant rewrite” in a bid to improve it and lower its cost.

Collins said the GOP will insist it is repealing and replacing Obamacare when it acts, but the reality is that it will likely reforge the law to make sure its “good parts” remain. Among the provisions likely to survive, she said, are those allowing children to remain on their parents’ policies until age 26 and ensuring that pre-existing conditions are insured as long as patients don’t let their policies lapse.

But Collins focused her address to chamber members at the Ramada Inn and Conference Center on her “new agenda” that she hopes can help put America back on track.

“It is time for us to leave the rancor and bitterness behind us,” she said. “Genuine accomplishments are the antidote.”

Collins said that Trump’s initial idea in his Election Night speech of rebuilding “our crumbling infrastructure” is on the mark. She said she is eager to chart a new course for improvements to roads, bridges, ports, airports and rail across the land.

Doing so, she said, would allow the country to “move people and products” more efficiently and safely. It would also create good jobs while leaving “lasting assets” in place to help future generations.

Collins said that biomedical research already has strong, bipartisan support in Congress. She said lawmakers added $2 billion to the effort last year and will likely add another $2 billion before the year is out.

But, she said, it can do even more to tackle thorny medical problems that hurt every American family, including Alzheimer’s disease, cancer and diabetes.

Making progress toward the care and cure of these health issues would “make a difference” for countless people and it would help lower the cost of health care, she said. Diabetes, for example, eats up a third of Medicare spending, Collins said, and is at epidemic levels in Maine.

Pouring more money into biomedical research “is an investment that pays dividends,” Collins said.

She also advocated a “fairer, simpler and more pro-growth tax code” as part of her new agenda. “It’s not going to be easy,” Collins said, but it’s worth trying.

Collins said that it’s also important to take on poverty, a pressing problem that government efforts to solve during the past half century, however well-intentioned, haven’t helped.

She said a new approach that focuses on breaking the cycle of poverty with “a focus on the whole family” is worth pursuing. Breaking the barriers that keep families locked in poverty, Collins said, is going to require everything from job training for adults who lack skills to pre-Head Start for children.

If Congress and the president took on all four of the proposals, she said, they “could make real progress on the issues that matter to the American people” while maintaining bipartisan appeal.

Collins suggested that Trump begin holding weekly meetings with congressional leaders so they could all get to know each other. She said it would be harder to demonize one another if they were to have a weekly meal and talk about what’s going on.

Collins also took a few minutes to praise military personnel and veterans on the eve of Veterans Day, which she termed “one of the most sacred days on our calendar.”

Collins said only two states have more veterans per capita than Maine. “We have done our part,” she said.

Collins said her 90-year-old father in Caribou, wounded at the Battle of the Bulge, used to put on his old military jacket and take her to parades to see the men march by. She learned from him “that our debt to our veterans can never be repaid.”

She said her father never mentioned anything much about World War II until she was an adult. She learned from him that at one point he was lying wounded in the snow when a shell landed right beside him.

“Miraculously, it did not explode,” Collins said, or she wouldn’t be around.

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