MSNBC "Interview With Senator Charles Grassley" - Transcript

Interview

Copyright ©2009 by Federal News Service, Inc., Ste. 500, 1000 Vermont Ave, Washington, DC 20005 USA. Federal News Service is a private firm not affiliated with the federal government. No portion of this transcript may be copied, sold or retransmitted without the written authority of Federal News Service, Inc. Copyright is not claimed as to any part of the original work prepared by a United States government officer or employee as a part of that person's official duties. For information on subscribing to the FNS Internet Service at www.fednews.com, please email Carina Nyberg at cnyberg@fednews.com or call 1-202-216-2706.

MS. MITCHELL: Senator Chuck Grassley from Iowa, ranking member on Senate Finance, joins me now live from Washington.

Senator, I know you've got to vote. And I'm going to try to get as much we can -- learn as much as we can from you before you have to run. When you run -- when you have to run, you go.

SEN. GRASSLEY: Okay.

MS. MITCHELL: First of all, you were pushing for low mortages, 4 percent mortages to jumpstar the housing industry. Where do you stand on that as you negotiate amendments on the floor?

SEN. GRASSLEY: Well, you might say that maybe that amendment is behind us because it did not get a majority vote. And it was up already. I was pushing for it, but Senator McCain and others were also out in front, and so we had an amendment yesterday in regard to that.

You know, this bipartisanship always starts at the foundation. You build a bipartisan bill before you bring it to the floor. This was a Democrat bill that was given to Republicans kind of take-it-or- leave-it or improve it if you could. But we don't seem to get that job done.

And so I'm a little worried about how bipartisan it would be, even though President Obama says that we have good ideas and that we ought to get some of those adopted. It doesn't seem to me like people in his party on the Hill are listening to him very well.

MS. MITCHELL: Well, what's going to happen with the group -- Susan Collins and Ben Nelson and perhaps Voinovich and others who are trying to come up with some way to scale it back and make it more pallatable?

SEN. GRASSLEY: Well, they're still working, Andrea. And I wish I could answer your question, but I asked that same question of some colleagues "What have you heard?" you know, in a sense. And it seems to be pretty quiet at this point, which maybe means that they have not reached an agreement or that they're close to an agreement and, you know, you don't talk about it until it's announced.

We're hopeful that there can be an agreement that will do what Larry Summers, the president's economic advisor, said "timely and targeted" and things of that nature. But we don't seem to be getting that in this legislation. Basically, that would call for getting all the things out of the legislation that can't be spent in the first two years and things that are going to be more infrastructure than ongoing programs.

MS. MITCHELL: But, at the same time, there's a lot of, you know, argument that you need as much money as quickly as possible to be thrown at this. Now, reasonable people can disagree about this since nobody really seems to know what is going to actually work.

SEN. GRASSLEY: Yeah.

MS. MITCHELL: Isn't there a sense of urgency? The president has a point when he -- when he says something has to be done quickly. And you're going to be hit with yet another package on Monday which is trying to recapitalize the banks and credit guarantees for financial instititions. What is going to be your attitude towards that? I know you haven't seen the package yet --

SEN. GRASSLEY: Well --

MS. MITCHELL: -- but you're being asked to take another big chunk.

SEN. GRASSLEY: Well, my attitude is, have they perfected it beyond a point of where Secretary Paulson tried two things -- and to my people back home, none of them seem to be working -- I think for any plan to have credibility, there's some assurance that it's going to work.

And you're right. And, by the way, on this stimulus package, I agree 100 percent with what you said in reporting President Obama, that it ought to be spent right away. That's why the emphasis needs to be upon stimulus and not on programs that -- that would go through the normal appropriation process and be programs well beyond two years because beyond two years, they won't be stimulus anymore.

MS. MITCHELL: Well, you've cued it up perfectly for me because I've got the right man to ask that question. Senator, you go vote.

I've got Jared Bernstein, the chief economist to the vice president, joining us now. Thank you very much, Senator Grassley.

SEN. GRASSLEY: Goodbye.

Source