MSNBC "Interview With Senator Charles Grassley" - Transcript

Interview

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MR. SHUBERT: The president is facing some criticism despite his own attempts to reach across the aisle last night. Watch.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: (From videotape.) I also know that in a time of crisis, we cannot afford to govern out of anger or yield to the politics of the moment. My job, our job, is to solve the problem.

MR. SHUBERT: Republican Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley is ranking member on the Senate Finance Committee, and Senator Grassley, what did you think of the speech last night?

SEN. GRASSLEY: I thought it was very well delivered. I think it was a well thought out speech. It may have been a lot short on details, but I'm not sure that I can criticize it for that reason, and I would especially like to highlight what he said about education because you can spend a lot of money on education, but he had a suggestion last night on education for more parental involvement in the education of their kids, whether it's volunteering in school, parent-teacher conferences, PTAs, shutting off the television set and encouraging homework, finishing school, all of those things he can do more for the economy, more for the family, more to reduce poverty as long as he uses his bully pulpit for that than anything else he can do that was said in his speech.

MR. SHUBERT: Senator Grassley, you voted against the stimulus package and I know you criticized it because you said it shorted Iowa on Medicaid funding. Some of your Republican colleagues felt that there was too much Medicaid funding and funding to the states to begin with.

Who is right?

SEN. GRASSLEY: Well, I even said that there was too much Medicaid funding in the first place, but if we were going to have it, I wanted to make the formula very fair to all states.

Now, in the case of too much, I'll define it this way according to the Congressional Budget Office, recession-induced unemployment, putting people on Medicaid about $11 billion. So what's the other $75 (billion), $76 billion there for? Well, it's a slush fund for states and now maybe the states need more money, but it ought to be dished out in a way that's more targeted than just a slush fund to the states. And so I would go along with that criticism as well. But understand that when I voted against the stimulus bill, it was based not on the tax provisions, not on the provisions that are going to be spent in the next two years to jump-start the economy, but about half of the spending is spent beyond the year 2011, it should have gone through the appropriation process, a more thoughtful process than a two week rush through of a stimulus bill.

MR. SHUBERT: Senator, that is one of the more thoughtful and articulate arguments against the stimulus we've heard from the Republican Party and I suppose it's baffling that more Republicans aren't arguing on the points that you are because it does seem to make a lot of sense, but that's an entirely separate issue.

I want to get to health care. Here's what President Obama said on health care last night. Watch.

PRESIDENT OBAMA (From video): I suffer no illusions that this will be an easy process, once again, it will be hard, but I also know that nearly a century after Teddy Roosevelt first called for reform, the cost of our health care has weighed down our economy and our conscience long enough. So let there be no doubt, health care reform cannot wait, it must not wait and it will not wait another year.

MR. SHUBERT: Senator, are you going to be able to get a health care deal through this Congress?

SEN. GRASSLEY: Well, I can tell you this that Senator Baucus is Chairman of the Finance Committee, I'm the senior Republican there, we work together pretty well. We have part of it. Senator Kennedy and Senator Enzi, the Republican and Democrat on the Health Committee has the other part of it, and so far, both committees are working in a bipartisan way to work towards that direction, but I can tell you it's a big job, there's lots of pieces and there's a lot of philosophical differences, but I think we all see the need for it because if we can solve the 100 percent of the health care issue, you know, it helps us with the 40 percent that is Medicare and entitlement and it's a necessary forerunner to deal with the underfunding of Medicare and the over-spending of Medicare.

MR. SHUBERT: Senator Chuck Grassley, ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee.

Senator Grassley, good of you to join us and we look forward to talking to you a lot in the days and weeks ahead as the health care debate and policy process continues, and thanks again.

SEN. GRASSLEY: You bet.

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