Congressman Mike Rogers: Right Wing and Wrong

I received a huge postcard in the mail from my congressman the other day that really ticked me off.

Mike Rogers, the former G-man and rabidly-partisan, disingenuous Republican politician who’s represented Michigan’s eighth congressional district since the year when those planes took out the Twin Towers, used taxpayer dollars to send me a huge, 8 ½-inch by 12-inch, two-sided document on card stock declaring that he’s Fighting for Michigan Jobs and Taking On the Economy and has introduced a jobs plan that will help “create certainty” among employers and job creators.  (I thought employers were job creators but what do I know?)

Rogers’ plan calls for a two-year moratorium on new taxes and regulations. He says “government doesn’t create jobs but we can help create certainty in the private sector.” We know that government has in fact saved or created millions on jobs in recent years (read “Government Spending Can Create Jobs—and It Has” at the Center for American Progress website) but Mr. Rogers apparently subscribes to the GOP’s “If it doesn’t fit with my beliefs, let’s not acknowledge it” philosophy.

The missive also points out that Rogers wants to stop “China’s cyber attacks that threaten U.S. jobs” and warns that China “is literally trying to steal our prosperity and our way of life out from under us.” It kinds of likens the American way of life to a checked tablecloth being pulled out from underneath our finest china by a dastardly foe clad in black, doesn’t it? In Mr. Rogers’ world, “Thieves from countries like China and Russia work feverishly to steal American innovations so they can compete unfairly against U.S. employers.” He doesn’t specify which innovations he’s referring but since U.S. patent filings have declined in recent years,  surely evil foreigners are the culprits.

I couldn’t stifle a chuckle when I read, “This mailing was prepared, published and mailed at taxpayer expense. It is provided as a service to 8th District Constituents.” You know what would make me feel served, Mr. Rogers? If you refrained from spending taxpayer money on missives intended solely to promote you and your conservative ideology. Better yet, if you abandoned your commitment to partisanship and subterfuge and started putting the needs of your constituents above your own. Actually, the best thing you could do for my neighbors and me is to throw in the towel so that the guy who wants to replace you, Lance Enderle, can begin to restore our faith in our congressional representative.

Wanna know one of the reasons why I really dislike the guy? Because on his Wikipedia page, he touts legislation he wrote while in the state senate from 1995 to 2000 that created the “Michigan Education Savings Plan” allowing people to set aside tax-free funds for their kids’ college education. Rogers conveniently leaves out that the idea was originally implemented years before by my boss, Governor Jim Blanchard; Blanchard’s successor, John Engler, killed the “Michigan Education Trust” and Rogers then reinvented the wheel.

This is politics at its muddiest, and Mike Rogers is a wizard at it.

Back when I worked for politicians – eight years on Blanchard’s staff and a year as a state senator’s aide – we had to be really careful about using public monies to mail anything that could be construed as partisan or political. I guess that’s one of the regulations Mike Rogers has deemed unnecessary.

America's New Flag?

Sources: Center for American Progress, Rogers mailing, CNN Money.