Rogers Blames Detroit for Auto Loan Failure

Mike "I'll fight for Michigan jobs" Rogers is blaming Detroit automakers for the failure of a loan to the auto industry.

That's right. The same Rogers who won re-election to Michigan's 8th Congressional District seat by promising to fight for Michigan jobs. This fighter-for-jobs is not blaming the Republicans in the U.S. Senate who threatened a filibuster against the $25 billion loan package that General Motors and Chrysler said they needed to stay afloat.

No, Rogers is blaming his own fellow Michiganders.

In a story on the area's 2008 economy in the Livingston Press and Argus for Saturday (January 2, 2009), Rogers is quoted as saying about the Congressional hearings on the matter:

"'The Big Three showed up here with a lot of pomp and arrogance and circumstance,' said U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Brighton. 'It almost cost us the deal.'"

Those were the hearings in which auto industry CEOs were subjected to much tougher scrutiny than were financial industry CEOs, who took their bailout funds and then went to spas in California, gave bonuses to executives, and stopped making loans.

What exactly does Rogers mean that the auto CEOs "almost cost us the deal"? There was no deal from Congress because Rogers' fellow Republicans in the Senate killed it. Lame duck George Bush had to limp in at the last minute and make a loan from the bank bailout appropriated earlier.

And what exactly was Rogers doing to make the deal happen anyway? He had to be forced to take a position on the loan in the first place, lamely claiming that he didn't know the details when constituents began calling for his position.

Michigan residents have enough Republicans from other states blaming us for suffering the effects of the recession. We don't need our own congressman picking on us, too.