This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Attention Congress: Wayne Rogers doesn't respect you.
Rogers, the 78-year-old actor-turned-businessman who gained fame as "M.A.S.H.'s" "Trapper John," thinks the men and women who populate the House and Senate are, to one degree or another, demagogues. They are, he said, self-dealers who appeal to emotion rather than facts, easily bought by lobbyists, ignorant of history and "dumb."
"They don't listen to you," Rogers said to a record crowd of 550 people who attended the Economic Development Corp. of Utah's annual meeting, held Wednesday at The Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City.
"They are interested in themselves," said Rogers, an actor, historian, part-time Deer Valley resident, Broadway producer, stock commentator on Fox News Channel and chairman of his own investment strategy firm. "They are interested in getting themselves in the paper or on the news, so they accommodate you by making some grandiose statement that is devoid of facts and [is] a lot of opinion."
The crowd appeared to hang on Rogers' every word as they forked down scrambled eggs and bacon during the early-morning meeting of the partnership of public and private groups that aims to promote economic growth in Utah. A born raconteur, his earthy populist message focused mainly on Congress, but spared almost nobody else.
"We are gradually going to a fascist economy," he said. "I don't mean that in a political sense. I mean that in an economic sense, meaning we are going to have [a monopoly of] big government, big business and big labor [calling all the shots]. And they are all in cahoots. They are passing laws that favor them[selves]. They are able to bribe Congress into doing all those things."
Again and again, though, Rogers returned to his favorite villains: Republicans, Democrats, one Socialist and one independent, whom he said should shoulder most of the blame for the 2007-2008 financial meltdown and the subsequent recession. Congress, he reminded the audience, passes laws. The House of Representatives is responsible for spending legislation, not the president.
He recounted his testimony in 1988 before the House Banking Committee, which was holding hearings about the Glass-Steagall Act, a Depression-era law that separated investment and commercial banking activities. A decade before the financial crisis hit, Rogers asserted to the panel that the nation's big banks were threatening the soundness of the banking system by pushing legislation that would allow them to get back into the securities business.
Rogers said he asked the panel members whether they were aware of hearings of the Senate Banking Committee during the waning months of the Hoover presidency and the first months of the New Deal. Spurred by Ferdinand Pecora, the committee's counsel whose grilling of the big Wall Street actors of the time riveted the nation, Congress passed Glass-Steagall and other legislation that would prevent the 1929 stock market crash from happening again.
"When I testified before the Congress, I asked them: 'How many have you read the Pecora hearings?' " Rogers said. "They had no idea, and we pay them to represent us. Well, what came out of the Pecora hearings came the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Glass-Steagall Act," which stabilized the nation's financial system for the next six decades.
Congress repealed Glass-Steagall in 1999. Eight years later, the financial system collapsed a second time. Congress responded in 2010 with the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform bill, which Rogers said will ultimately fail to protect the nation because it did not again separate commercial banking from more speculative investment banking.
Dodd-Frank "didn't cure anything. As long as you leave the investment banks together with the community banks, it's going to happen again. It has to. [It's] bound to," Rogers said.
Rogers poked a stick at Occupy Wall Street protesters who he said are going after the wrong target.
"What they ought to be doing is protesting Congress. Congress caused this. It wasn't [the banks, ultimately, who brought about the financial collapse]. It was Congress, when they abandoned the Glass-Steagall Act," he said.
Rogers' words seemed to resonate with many in the audience, who said they are fed up with partisans who have created so much rancor in government.
"He speaks from the heart. He may not be politically correct, but he hits the nail right on the head," said David Hill, general manager of Cameron Construction in Salt Lake City.
Said Sandy Mayor Tom Dolan, "I'm not seeing a lot of responsiveness in Congress. It seems to be more politics than the business of government.
"I think we ought to be focused on getting some things moving instead of waiting until the next election," Dolan said.
Twitter: @SLTribPaul —
EDC of Utah calls 2010-2011 'stellar'
Jobs created • 7,263 versus 3,788 in the previous year
Jobs retained • 1,346 versus 897 a year earlier
Real estate space absorb-ed • 3.15 million square feet versus 1.35 million
Capital investment in Utah • $795.8 million versus $348.9 million
Visits by companies interested in the state • 125 versus 136