Tim Walberg column: Empowering citizens, not big government

From M Live: 

My focus as your representative is empowering citizens, not big government in Washington D.C., and seeking common sense nonpartisan solutions.
 
Having grown up in a proud low-income neighborhood in the Midwest, paying my way through college by working in a steel mill, and serving as a pastor, I understand what it's like to struggle, but I also appreciate the abundance of opportunities to serve others in our great country.

On your behalf I fly coach every week and sleep in my office remembering where I'm from, and work to balance the federal budget, improve education and job training initiatives through more local control, and protect citizens from the damages of the president's health-care law.

As one of 535 members of Congress, I am working in our divided government to make a positive difference.  Here are four specific examples from this term.

• We passed through my committee and the president signed into law the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, which will improve America's job training efforts by eliminating federal government programs and empowering local education and workforce development efforts.

• My legislation to provide law enforcement more tools to identify, locate, and recover victims of child human trafficking was incorporated into the Missing Children's Assistance Reauthorization, which has been signed into law.

• I worked with two Democrats and one other Republican to pass an amendment to save taxpayers $79 million, by stopping the money from going into a wasteful Afghanistan reconstruction fund.  We studied the fund in depth and determined our tax dollars were not being spent wisely, so we forged a bipartisan coalition to do something about it, and we were thankfully successful.

• The death of the U.S. ambassador and brave Americans in Benghazi was tragic, and the lack of answers from the Administration is unfair to the victims' families.  A crucial part of reviewing Benghazi is to make policy changes to prevent a future occurrence.  I introduced and passed an amendment to direct more funding to the Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force - Crisis Response so America would be better prepared in the future.

I will continue working for solutions. Unfortunately, my opponent, Pam Byrnes, seems more interested in attacking me for getting paid like every member of Congress and falsely blaming me for the government shutdown, when in reality, I voted numerous times to open crucial parts of the government.

I suspect Pam Byrnes will be making many personal attacks between now and Election Day because she wants to avoid her record of supporting government housing subsidies for illegal immigrants, the Obama-Pelosi trillion dollar stimulus and numerous tax increases while Michigan was in a recession.

We need to increase hope and opportunity in our community and country, and I believe we do that by empowering people instead of the massive federal government.

Read the full article here.