U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers voted against the majority of the Democrats First 100 Hours agenda and voted for big business and oil companies.
As the Democrats accomplish what they promised leading up to the November election that helped them gain control of the House and Senate, The Livingston County Daily Press and Argus summed up Rogers votes. He voted for two of the six historic proposals by the Democrats, and the obvious question is if he voted for two of them why didn’t he introduced them in the six years his party was in control of the House?
The most disturbing thing to me in the article was Rogers could not be bothered to talk about his votes to the newspaper. Apparently, being in the minority had not required him to be accountable. The case could be made he is in Iraq or overseas and not as accessible, but when he was in Iraq, Rogers said he called home for an undercover CIA agent. Now that the election is over, Rogers can again ignore the voters in the 8th Congressional District. The last election was the first time he was ever accessible to the voters since he was elected by just 111 votes in 2000.
Rogers spokeswoman Sylvia Warner said the congressman was not available for an interview on the proposals, but provided responses to written questions instead.
She provides 90 percent of his actual quotes anyway, so it’s not much of a stretch for her to write them out. Rogers voted for finally implementing the recommendations of the bipartisan 9/11 Commission to protect the country from terrorist attacks. What took so long, and why didn’t the Republicans take this up? He also voted to cut the interest rate on federal student loans.
Rogers voted no on increasing the minimum wage, approving federal funding for stem cell research and allowing negotiating and buying prescription drugs in bulk to get lower costs. Rogers ignores the success the Veterans Administration has had in using their huge buying power to get low prices by buying in volume. Many senior citizens groups have endorsed the plan, such as AARP, but apparently they do not give as much in campaign contributions as huge pharmaceutical companies.
Rogers also voted against ending taxpayer-funded subsidies for Big Oil and creating a Strategic Energy and Renewables Reserve. He claimed the record and obscene profits the oil companies received last year were not enough reason for them to invest some of that record profit into research for alternative fuels, and, apparently, the only way they will do that is if we give them the money.
Rogers submitted answer – allegedly written by him – is “You need all three so that we don't send more money to (Iranian President Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad and (Venezuelan leader Hugo) Chavez," Rogers wrote?
2 comments:
Unfortunately, the local media consistently lets Rogers get away with dodging actual interviews. An elected official -- especially one who isn't in a leadership position -- shouldn't be "unavailable." Is he too busy to come to the phone? To read and reply to an email? You have to wonder what exactly IS he doing down there in D.C.? He's not that easy to find when he's home, either.
The other benefit of written responses from the Divine Ms. S.: no follow-up questions. So ridiculous statements like the energy bill will benefit Ahemdinejad and Chavez conveniently
skips over the point that they're ALREADY getting US oil $$, and that US oil companies aren't putting any of their record-breaking profits into alternative energy research.
Finally, we need to keep an eye on Rogers' creep to the right. MI GOPers Miller, Ehlers and Knollenberg managed to keep their knee-jerk responses under control and voted for the energy bill. Ditto for Fred Upton's yes vote for the stem cell bill. On minimum wage, Ehlers, McCotter, Miller and Upton voted with the majority for passage(Knollenberg didn't vote). None of these folks are wishy-washy RINOs. Why is Mike so afraid to look at the big picture of the challenges facing our country?
Interesting points, but what exactly would you have the newspaper do, hold a gun to the congressman's head and force him to speak? If the paper were really in Rogers' pocket, it wouldn't have done the story at all, don't you think? Just let him slide. Instead, they got what answers they could.
Hey Sally, I don't know what progranda is, but you weren't complaining when they did a story on this blog, or gave a lot of coverage to Jim Marcinkowski, or endorsed Kerry.
I don't know what's worse, the Republicans complaining about biased coverage, or you guys.
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