Michigan Congressman Tim Walberg, R-District 7, answered these questions from audience members on a wide range of topics during a visit to Chelsea on Saturday.
Q. The oil companies make 9 cents a gallon in profit, but the government makes four times that in taxes. What can be done about that?
A. My colleague, John Dingell (D-District 15), told my wife on the plane from Washington that we ought to just get used to paying $5 or $6 a gallon for gas, and she was too polite to say anything. If I had heard that, I would have disagreed with my good friend.
I don't think we ought to feel guilty for our standard of living, which is the best in the world.
However, we should feel guilty if we abuse the environment.
Q. Is there any sense of if there's a bottom to how far the dollar is going to drop and whether the price of gas is going to continue to rise?
A. What I'm told is, this summer gas will top out at just under $4 a gallon.
As far as the dollar, I think we can stop the slide of the dollar, but the question then becomes whether we can reverse it.
Bigger, more expensive government is not the answer. When you take more money out of the private sector to give it to the government, there's less to go around.
Q. Farmers are being blamed for higher food prices, with corn being used for ethanol. What can we do?
A. Food for fuel is a big issue right now. We don't have a common-sense energy policy that allows us to be independent.
Q. Do you support the Michigan Fair Tax constitutional amendment that would go on the November ballot? (In essence, the fair tax replaces all other income and property taxes with a flat-rate sales tax.)
A. The nicest thing about it is, April 15 would be like any other day; there are good people doing good work at the IRS but the IRS no longer as an entity wouldn't hurt my feelings a bit.
It would be tough to make it work on a national level. The best idea would be if we can have a few states like Michigan adopt it, then let the other states see how it works.
Even if it was just a flat income tax for 10 years, I'd take that — anything that would simplify the tax structure, I'm all for it.
As a sales tax, it would let me pay my taxes as I buy things. That way I can choose how much I want to pay and when I want to pay it.
Q. Although I want less government, we used to have a lot of regulations on food and product safety. But now we've had all these all these problems with things coming from China: the tainted cat food, the lead paint in toys. It seems that asking industry to regulate itself is like asking the fox to regulate the henhouse.
We also need regulation of all the greed on Wall Street. We got into trouble with mortgages being 'sliced and diced' and resold in pieces in the stock market. There needs to be more regulation of residential mortgages.
A. We're looking at the whole problem. It's expanded way beyond what people with common sense should allow themselves to get into.
The mortgages are only 5 percent of the problem. I took an adjustable rate mortgage on a home equity loan to renovate my 170-year-old house with the knowledge that I would refinance into a fixed-rate when the numbers were right.
The problem is with people who got into this without realizing what was involved.
What I think will happen is, the market will regulate itself. Would the government do better at regulating that?
It comes down to our schools and families teaching true economics, and that actions have consequences.
On food and product safety, I think we've done a good job of finding those problems.
My position is, if we (government) get out of the way our people will be able to compete and Wal-Mart won't have to sell products made in China. Our people can make products with our best interests in mind.
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