Rep. Thaddeus McCotter, R-Mich., explains why he voted no on the stimulus

JEROME VAUGHN: Right now we’re looking at how to do stimulus money. We’ve got Thaddeus McCotter who’s going to be talking about that with us as well. He voted against the stimulus package and that’s what I want to ask him about right now. Congressman McCotter, are you there on the line?

REP. MCCOTTER: Yeah, Hi.

JEROME VAUGHN: Good to be with you. My first question is: Those of us in Detroit know you pretty well, know you like to play Beatles songs on your guitar. Somehow I take it ?Tax Man? is not your favorite song.

REP. MCCOTTER: It’s actually a very good tune by Harrison. I tend to agree with the underlying substance, ?There’s one for you, 19 for me.?

JEROME VAUGHN: So, what’s behind your decision to oppose the stimulus bill?

REP. MCCOTTER: I think it was going, in the long run, do more harm than good. As you know, in Michigan our short-terms are short and our long-terms tend to be long in a recessed economy. The problem I have is some of the hope that was in the stimulus bill, such as the deduction of interest off an auto loan was somehow removed in the dead of night, and that’s not going to help. The Free Press had a good article about how the stimulus bill isn’t going to help the auto industry. And you go through my district and you talk to the manufacturers and you talk to the suppliers, these people are staring at bankruptcy in many ways and this bill does nothing for them. And so we deserved a little better in Michigan than we got. Now that it’s passed we just have to make the best of it.

JEROME VAUGHN: You’re the Republican Congressman for Michigan’s 11th district. For those of us who may not have known that. The question is: How are people in the district responding to that? They’re looking for some stimulus money, a way to turn things around. What are they saying to you about your vote?

REP. MCCOTTER: Well, they didn’t like it. It was a spontaneous grassroots movement against it, especially when they started to find out the things that weren’t in there as pertains to the auto industry in particular. Again, we’re faced with the situation in Detroit?here’s our best case scenario as of today: Stimulus bill passes, a trillion dollars with interest is spent. Our auto industry still hangs by a thread under a new auto task force, a couple of whom happen to drive American cars. Even in the best case scenario if that auto bridge loan is expanded, they’re talking 50,000 jobs between Chrysler and GM being lost and plants being closed. Now, when you look at a stimulus in the short-run and you look at that in the long-run, if the auto industry goes under, why weren’t more of the concerns addressed with regards to the auto industry within the stimulus bill.

JOHN HOCKENBERRY: That’s an interesting point.

JEROME VAUGHN: No hope that that’s going to happen? How do you feel what the prospects of what those bridge loans do and what needs to happen?

REP. MCCOTTER: I don’t like to prognosticate on it. We saw last winter, in the last days of the Bush administration, the irony of a president that was not considered particularly friendly to the auto industry, having his treasury secretary approve the bridge loan. I think President Obama understands the need for a domestic auto industry. I think people, such as UAW President Ron Gettelfinger and the auto companies by working together, putting forward a realistic restructuring plan, it’s very painful for our area and the working families to survive, to have that industry survive for those that can stay in that industry. I think that they’re going to look at it. I think we’re going to see a process of the task force and the companies, and the union go forward. I don’t think the president would set up this task force with so many of his officials if it was just going to be an up or down decision.

JEROME VAUGHN: The area’s got an unemployment rate of 10.7 percent. People are looking for jobs, they’ve been losing jobs left and right in the auto industry. This money is coming into the district now, despite your opposition. What do you want to see happen with that money?

REP. MCCOTTER: I want to make sure that it does go to long-term infrastructure projects. I think we’ll have a temporary spike in employment in the district. And it has long-term sustainability. We don’t want to see any projects that aren’t worthy of the taxpayers’ support and that don’t have long-term viability. We have very good local elected officials in my district. We have very good interest there for transparency and I think you’ll see a lot of water/sewer projects come forward. But again, if you look at the unemployment rate in Michigan you still have, and I was just with before we had to come out here Monday, a manufacturer who did nothing wrong, had a customer go into bankruptcy they’re trying to get him to take 10 cents on the dollar. And he’s got 95 people who work for him and whose families depend on these jobs. And the stimulus bill does nothing about that. In Michigan we’re going to see the case where our unemployment, especially when you look at the auto industry as a whole, continue to go up despite the fact that you have this temporary stimulus bill. In the long run, with manufacturing, because they tend to be day-to-day, tend to be relatively cash-poor, the real issue is getting the credit market going so they can expand to meet new markets, so they can expand where potential competitors may have fallen away to get that new business in the door. And that’s one of the biggest things that’s hurting us, we’re having little travesties every day where a shop will close because they couldn’t get financing and they couldn’t expand to get new business.

JEROME VAUGHN: Thanks very much. Republican Congressman Thaddeus McCotter from Michigan’s 11th district.