LANSING, Mich. (Michigan Advance, Katherine Dailey) — Michigan Democratic elected officials and party leaders joined Michigan AFL-CIO President Ron Bieber to call out Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mike Rogers for his support of President Donald Trump’s agenda — criticizing him for supporting policies that they say have raised prices of food, housing, gas and healthcare.
“Forcing kids in our state to go hungry at a time when gas prices are high and food and housing costs are getting more expensive, increasing healthcare costs has got to be just about the dumbest damn thing you can do, and yet Mike Rogers is still campaigning on Trump’s agenda,” Bieber said. “He’s even called it a monumental victory for working families.”
The press conference was held on the one-year anniversary of the passage through the U.S. Senate of Trump’s H.R. 1, or the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which enacted much of the president’s domestic policy in his first year.
The impacts of those policies were highlighted by speakers as directly responsible for raising costs for Michiganders.
State Rep. Jason Morgan (D-Ann Arbor) cited cuts to Affordable Care Act tax credits and Medicaid — and his own experience being diagnosed at 13 with Becker’s muscular dystrophy, a rare disease that could cost tens of thousands of dollars in medical bills.
“I don’t want to go back to the days when families are afraid to even get a diagnosis because they’re afraid they’ll lose the very care they need for treatment if the insurers find out they have an illness,” he said. “$50 for a doctor’s appointment might not sound like much to a multimillionaire like Mike Rogers, but for average working families that means whether you, that means paying your bills or not. That means paying your electric bill or seeing a doctor. Michiganders know better.”
But Rogers’ perceived indifference to those concerns was far more of an issue for those speaking.
“You might think that pain caused by these policies would convince Mike Rogers to show some concern that he might have reevaluated the ways and agenda of raising costs on everyday people, but he hasn’t,” Michigan Democratic Party Chair Curtis Hertel said.
State Sen. Chedrick Greene (D-Saginaw) also compared Rogers’ policies — and his statements on the impacts of federal policies — to his own conversations on the campaign trail in his May special election victory in a swing state senate district.
“I listened to my neighbors, what they were going through, I acknowledged their struggles, and I told them I will fight for solutions,” he said. “Mike Rogers is doing the opposite. He couldn’t care less about the cost crisis his party has created, or that is crushing hardworking Michiganders.”