Mike Rogers (MI) Cost of Living Iran War Michigan

Mike Rogers Now Wants Michigan's Gas Tax Suspended. He Voted to Raise It, and Once Warned a Suspension Might Not Lower Prices at All.

With Michigan gas near $5 in large part because of an Iran war he called a 'win-win-win,' Mike Rogers is calling for a gas tax holiday. As a state senator he voted to raise the gas tax, and he once said suspending it was 'not a foolproof method.'

MAGA Report Cards · Sep 19, 2026

Mike Rogers Now Wants Michigan's Gas Tax Suspended. He Voted to Raise It, and Once Warned a Suspension Might Not Lower Prices at All.

On Thursday, September 17, Mike Rogers (MI) asked Michigan drivers to believe he's on their side at the pump.

"Working families need leaders who will bring the costs of energy down, not ones who will make their lives less affordable," the Republican U.S. Senate nominee said in a written statement. "That's why I'm calling for a suspension of both the state and federal gas tax — because hardworking Michiganders deserve relief at the pump."

That's a big change for Rogers. As the Detroit Metro Times found in old newspaper archives, he once voted to raise Michigan's gas tax — and warned that suspending it might not do anything for drivers at all.

What he said before

In 1997, Rogers was a Michigan state senator. According to the Metro Times, he voted for House Bill 4872, which raised the state gas tax from 15 cents to 19 cents a gallon — an increase of almost 27%. It stayed at 19 cents until the end of 2016.

He was also against the idea of a gas tax holiday. In archived newspaper accounts, the Metro Times found him quoted in the Holly Herald:

"There is no guarantee that if state leaders suspend the gas tax that prices consumers pay at the pump will go down. Rolling back the gas tax, even temporarily, is not a foolproof method for reducing gasoline costs."

He told the Ann Arbor News the same thing: a suspension "may drop the price a few pennies at the pump. It may not."

Now that he's the one on the ballot, a suspension is his answer.

He blamed the wrong people, and his own party's leader said so

Rogers didn't stop at calling for a tax holiday. He attacked the state's current gas tax, saying lawmakers "raised our gas tax from 31 cents on the gallon to 51" and calling that "unconscionable." He blamed "Lansing Democrats."

Bridge Michigan reported that this leaves out two things. Republicans sponsored and helped pass that law. And the higher per-gallon tax came with the end of Michigan's 6% sales tax on gas — state House Republicans called it a tax shift, not a tax hike.

Michigan's Republican House Speaker, Matt Hall — a Rogers supporter — didn't back him up. Hall told Bridge he likes Rogers and is supporting him, "But I don't agree with that characterization."

Hall also said he didn't think a state suspension was "realistic": "I certainly don't want to pause all the great work we're doing to fund our local roads."

Rogers didn't say how long the suspension should last or how Michigan would pay for road repairs without it. Bridge reported his campaign did not immediately answer those questions. The state's fuel taxes are projected to bring in nearly $2.4 billion this year, and almost all of it goes to roads, bridges and public transit, according to the Metro Times.

The federal side isn't happening either. The U.S. House adjourned Wednesday and isn't expected back until after the November 3 election.

Why gas costs so much right now

Michigan's average price for regular gas hit $4.75 on Thursday, and some metro Detroit stations crossed $5, Bridge reported. Diesel in Michigan hit an all-time high of $6.54 a gallon.

A major reason is the U.S. war with Iran, which has limited access to a strait that roughly a fifth of the world's crude oil passes through.

Rogers has been one of that war's loudest cheerleaders. As we've documented, he called it "absolutely right" and "a win-win-win for us," said Americans are "better off today than we were when it started," and waved off a voter's worry about gas prices in March: "We're gonna be fine, we got plenty of oil."

His Democratic opponent, Abdul El-Sayed, pointed that out the same day Rogers announced his plan. "It's not taxes that are spiking our prices, it's the insane war your boss Donald Trump got us into," he wrote. "You called it a 'win-win-win.'"

Who has been paying Rogers

The oil and gas industry has good reason to like Rogers. In Congress, he voted against a bill to stop gas price gouging in 2007, and he took $693,234 from oil and gas companies, executives and employees over his 14 years in the House. Texas oil billionaire Tim Dunn has put millions into the super PAC backing his Senate run.

A gas tax holiday costs the oil companies nothing. The taxes it pauses pay for Michigan's roads. The war that is driving prices up keeps going.

In summary

Mike Rogers (MI) voted in 1997 to raise Michigan's gas tax by almost 27% and once said suspending it was "not a foolproof method" of lowering prices. Now, with Michigan gas near $5 a gallon in large part because of an Iran war he called "a win-win-win," he wants the tax suspended — while blaming Democrats for a law his own party sponsored, a claim Michigan's Republican House speaker publicly rejected.