GOP blueprint

(Lance Enderle is the Democratic candidate for Congress in the 8th Congressional District. City Pulse is donating space to Enderle between now and the General Election as an in-kind contribution. Enderle’s writing is unedited.)

With burners on high, the election season is heating up and Republicans are cranking out rhetoric of winning a majority in Congress this November. Meanwhile, little media play has been given to the meeting of 40-50 energy and telecom industry executives with the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Republican members on September 15 at The Republican Club.

In that meeting, Republicans told big business that it’s time to pay up if they expect their usual benefits when their party takes control. Lawmakers willing to trade votes for campaign cash attended, and Michigan Congressman Mike Rogers was there as usual, with his hand out.

Republicans speak as though the elections have already been held, the votes have been counted, and the results are in. With this in mind, Rogers is doing everything possible to vacuum up every dollar big business is willing to throw his way.

During the dark Bush/Cheney years, we watched as Rogers stood mute while Eli Lilly and Pfizer wrote their own prescription drug laws. During that same period, AIG and numerous insurance companies set government health insurance guidelines while Rogers eagerly played along, allowing them that luxury as long as the campaign checks didn’t bounce.

Exxon, BP, and big oil practically wrote their own energy and environmental policies. Wall Street and BankAmerica, in essence, wrote government financial laws. Mike stayed out of their way and allowed the free market to regulate itself and rape as it pleased.

Now, the public is paying an excessive price for Mike’s backward policies. We’re living in the worst economic times since the great depression, we recently witnessed the worst environmental disaster in history, and corporations are siphoning our jobs to other countries faster than you can say NAFTA.

These horrible consequences are the real-life results of Rogers and Congressional leaders following the Bush/ Cheney blueprint. It’s frightening that Rogers can’t see the results of his voting record, and wants us to continue following him down this disastrous path.

Mike is willing to allow the United States to become a nation Of The Corporations, For The Corporations, and By The Corporations, but only after the corporations fill his campaign chest. Of course, corporations are willing to pay because they can easily pass the tab along to their consumers--John Q. Public.

However, one has to question where all this campaign cash is going. After all, Rogers’ campaign literature states that it has been "prepared, published, and mailed at taxpayer expense."

In yet another taxpayer funded campaign literature piece that Rogers recently sent to thousands of constituents he writes; "...we need to get government out of the way so small businesses across Michigan can keep their doors open and create jobs." However, he gives no clue as to how he’ll create jobs, or why he hadn’t worried about this sooner. The assumption is he’ll give us more of the same worn out, tried-and-failed policies.

The irony is rich when Rogers continually pushes the notion that government doesn’t work, then asks us to keep him running our government by electing him again. Since the 2000 elections, when voters first put him in office, Rogers has done everything he could to prove that government doesn’t work--at least not for the general public. But his voting record has worked miracles for the top dogs.

The only way we can turn these problems around is to finally say we have had enough, and send Rogers packing. What we need most is what we haven’t had for the last 10 years--congressional representatives who are not afraid of being held accountable to the people who elected them.