Rep. Mo Brooks, D-5, said American citizens will have to wait until the next presidential election in 2012 for the chance to see real changes in U.S. government.

Brooks spoke Thursday night at a town hall meeting open to the public in the GUC Performance Center at UNA. Shoals residents drilled Brooks on a handful of topics, including big oil companies, illegal immigration, foreign industry, social programs and the recent debt ceiling crisis in Congress.

An economy formed on private sectors and the free enterprise model would be most beneficial in bringing more jobs to and eliminating debt in the U.S., said Brooks.

“It won’t be until the 2012 election that people will have to decide which economic model to go with — socialism or free enterprise,” he said. “By God, we need different people in our white house and Senate. 2013 would be the earliest we would be able to begin eliminating the damage done to our economy.”

Brooks, a supporter of Alabama’s new immigration law to come into effect Sept. 1, proclaimed earlier this summer he would do anything short of shooting an illegal immigrant to solve the issue of illegal immigration within the state and nation.

Brooks said employers should be punished for hiring illegal immigrants. Under the new immigration bill, all businesses will be required to use E-Verify beginning April 1 of next year to verify the citizenship of prospective employees.

He said Alabama citizens must elect new leaders with a similar vision if the U.S. will make progress in eliminating or reducing illegal immigration.

“The public will have to elect new people in order to change the system,” Brooks said. “Illegal aliens result in the lost jobs of Americans, the loss of small businesses from being created and cause our health care to go up.”

To bring wealth back to America, Brooks believes the U.S. may have to revert back to a community, family and neighbor-based method of helping alleviate debt across the country. He said individuals and groups must work together to produce results in order to preserve the standard of living in which most Americans are accustomed.

Brooks, a Republican based out of Huntsville who came into office in January, said the nationwide attention given to the debt ceiling crisis has been misguided. He voted against raising the debt ceiling by $2.4 trillion.

“The huge focus on the debt ceiling is not the problem; it is a symptom of the problem,” he said. “The actual disease was what contributed to the problem. The (disease was) unsustainable deficits.”