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By TYLER RALEY | Staff Writer

HOOVER – With important business representatives all around the room, U.S. Congressman Gary Palmer provided insights on many topics at the helm of today’s government during a luncheon on Monday, April 21.

Palmer, who serves Alabama’s 6th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives, spoke to many gathered at The Hyatt Regency – The Wynfrey Hotel for an update from Washington D.C.

The event was held in collaboration with six major chambers of commerce in the Birmingham area—the Shelby County Chamber, the Homewood Chamber, the Hoover Area Chamber of Commerce, the Montevallo Chamber of Commerce, the North Jefferson Chamber of Commerce and the Mountain Brook Chamber of Commerce.

Palmer has been serving in a high-stress situation, as he is trying to help Congress pass a reconciliation budget package bill passed. However, should the package fail or not get done, the country will be facing a massive dent in the way of taxes.

“We’re putting this much emphasis in because if we don’t get this done, if this package fails, at the end of this year we’ll be facing somewhere in the range of a $4.5 trillion tax increase,” Palmer said. “That would be devastating to the economy.”

Palmer said that in order to help the cause, he is trying to help deal with not only the tax cut efforts, but the tax regulations as well. With a lot of movement happening on that front in various agencies, he is ultimately trying to make it sensible for people to invest in the United States again, citing some experience from his time in the first Trump administration as a method of success.

“When I chaired the subcommittee on intergovernmental affairs, we worked directly with the Trump administration to get rid of obsolete regulations, regulations that were duplicative, that were in contradiction to one another,” Palmer said. “By the end of that four-year term, we had reduced regulatory costs by over $200 billion.”

In the way of deficits, Palmer stated that the country was in a bad spot, but that he has been working since the moment he got into Congress to take care of improper payments that are being handed out presently.

“We are running, right now, somewhere between $240-250 billion per year in improper payments,” Palmer said. “That doesn’t include the interest we’re paying off… So we’re literally increasing our deficit sending money out improperly.

“This is really the modernization of the federal government, something that has been overdue for decades, and I think we’re going to get there, but in the process there’s going to be some changes. I think that we can work through these sensibly and get us to where we need to be and get our fiscal house in order.”

In the way of energy, Palmer is fighting to try and figure out why the Biden administration sent $20.1 billion to eight organizations in just four weeks, having sent out requests to each organization on the processes they went through to obtain the funds resulting in $40 billion in combined revenues.

Palmer then discussed the crisis of lacking necessary rare-earth elements like germanium, gallium and antimony, the last of which is needed by the military. He said the entire western hemisphere is without a refinery for those elements, whereas China is a stronghold. Palmer wants America to be a deterrent to China’s strength on that front, but knows currently, the U.S. would struggle.

“If we got in a major conflict in China, we would really be in a bad position securing the materials that we have to have to keep our military operational, to keep our economy going,” Palmer said. 

Palmer also went on to mention the Birmingham Northern Beltline being started, which is a planned 52-mile bypass route around Birmingham and is a major project in central Alabama that is scheduled to be completed by 2048.

Congressman Palmer then concluded by answering a question about how soon in the future citizens could expect lowering interest rates, to which he feels there is a pause at the moment largely due to the tariffs.

“I think that we’re kind of in a pause phase right now, and I think what the president has done on the tariffs side of things has caused that,” Palmer said. “We’ve got to get through this phase, and I think we can. I think there are some deals being worked out right now, because this is hurting everybody… We all need to come together, whatever our political or other differences might be, for the good of the country, for the future of this country, for the future of our kids and grandkids, we need to come together.”