Transcription of Senator Grassley's Capitol Hill Report

Statement

STAFF: The following is an unrehearsed interview with Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, speaking to you live from Washington.

Participating in today's public affairs program are Jim Turbes with KWBG Radio in Boone, and Maureen Olsen with the Neola Gazette in Neola.

The first question will be from Jim Turbes.

QUESTION: Senator, the Senate looks like they're going to start moving ahead on some -- some amendments pertaining to the health care bill. I know that there's still a lot to do on this. Of course, the Democratic leadership is saying that some of the Republicans are -- are kind of dragging it down, but it is a massive piece of bill with major implications.

Do you anticipate that we'll see a long process to get this taken care of?

GRASSLEY: Well, it should be. First of all, I'll say thank you to both of us (sic) for being with us.

We -- well, think in terms of this. It took the leader in the secrecy of his office three weeks to put together a bill between the Senate Finance Committee and the Senate HELP Committee -- separate bills. And now, there's something seems to be wrong with taking maybe three weeks to debate it or even longer to debate it? Particularly considering the fact we spent seven weeks on No Child Left Behind. We spent five weeks on an energy bill. None of those are as sweeping as this health care reform bill, affecting one out of every six dollars spent in the United States -- one-sixth of the economy.

So I think that we ought to be deliberate, as that's the constitutional role of the United States Senate, and we are now starting to vote on amendments, as we just have completed voting on the first two amendments. And in two hours, we're going to vote on two other amendments. So we are moving ahead.

QUESTION: I understand, Senator, that you were planning to offer an amendment to restore your amendment requiring leadership and staff of Congress to receive the same health care coverage as everyone else and some other amendments. Have any of yours come to the floor yet?

GRASSLEY: No, and they'll come up very late because we're trying to concentrate on our amendments on the three core issues that are center to this bill, that Democrats are going to try to avert discussion of. One of them is on the premium increases. The other one is on the tax increases. And the other one is the raiding of Medicare funds by about $460 billion.

And that's what we want to concentrate on. So later on, my amendment will be coming up, and let me explain why. It's -- it was a cute thing that the Democratic leader tried to do -- health care through what we call the "exchange," where you could go if you wanted to go for some help on determining what's best for you and the price you want to pay.

And they conveniently thought they wanted us to believe that they were leaving our amendment just the way it was. But they wrote it in a way that left out (inaudible) committee staff of the Senate, and leadership staff.

GRASSLEY: And when I say "leadership staff," that would be people on Senator Reid's committee because he's leader of the Senate.

And I said it's cute. They aren't going to get away with it. My amendment in the committee was adopted on a unanimous vote, and I don't think anybody's going to vote against my amendment on the floor of the Senate when I restore it to where it was.

QUESTION: Senator, I know that hearings are going on on the reconsideration of Chairman Bernanke. I know you've followed along very closely with what's been happening here. I believe Senate Banking Committee is handling it.

Do you believe Bernanke's done a fairly good job? Should he have more time to work on it? It still is -- our economy still is a shaky situation.

GRASSLEY: I could never make a judgment against him based upon his qualification. I can make a vote against him based upon judgment. This is -- the judgment so far would not be a reason to vote against him because (inaudible) Fed legitimately step in and print money when you and I aren't spending money to keep the economy going. But if they keep that up, or don't stop it soon enough, we're going to have hyper-inflation.

So I've got to see some action out of him that he sees hyper-inflation coming and he's going to do all in his power, and most of it's in his power. Some of it is in the deficit spending habits of the United States Congress. But I've got to see Dr. Bernanke, Chairman Bernanke -- whatever you want to call him -- I've got to see him waking up to the fact that his printing money is leading us to hyper-inflation and he's still got time to crank the printing presses down, and I want to see him do that before he's going to get my vote.

QUESTION: Senator, today's the White House Jobs Summit, and yesterday you sent a letter to the president encouraging him to look at developing new market opportunities through expanded trade. Did you receive any response to that letter? And do you expect that subject to be covered?

GRASSLEY: Well, it better be covered. Will it be covered? That's the purpose of my letter, to make sure at least from my standpoint, it's on the agenda. If they don't do anything with it, although they seem to have a subset that is looking at international trade. But you've got to look at what we export in Iowa -- a lot of agricultural products, 22 percent of the John Deere tractors, and 44 percent of the stuff that's made at 3M in Knoxville. And I don't know how many other figures I've got in my head, but let's just stop with those two.

Anyway, our economy is being hurt because we aren't doing enough to get these free trade agreements approved and level the playing field for American manufacturers as we've done it for the rest of the world over a long period of time. And now we've got a chance to have a level playing field for our country, and none of these agreements are going through, and they need to -- they need to get these agreements sent up here so we can start working on them and get a level playing field for American manufacturing and agricultural products.

QUESTION: Thank you.

GRASSLEY: And I might add, too, that 24 percent of the world's economy is based on international trade. And last year was the first year since 1982 that we hadn't had any growth in international trade. And the United States is a big aspect of that world market of trade.

QUESTION: Thank you, Senator.

About this week, the president presented his Afghanistan plan. I know you had some (inaudible) say about it. There's been a lot of people on both sides of this issue. A lot of the details still need to be worked out.

GRASSLEY: On -- on what?

QUESTION: On the president's plan for Afghanistan.

GRASSLEY: Oh, yes. Well, I -- I would hope after three months of cogitating on it that he's got them all worked out. You've got to get them over there and get them implemented. And -- and so I don't see anything other than just getting the show on the road, and it should have been on the road three months ago.

But regardless, I see the president -- well, I better start out by complimenting the president because I don't think I compliment the president enough, and sometimes there isn't reason to compliment him. But on this one, I think I ought to say that he's doing what he said he was going to do during the campaign. His strategy announced in March fulfilled that campaign promise.

He fired a general that wasn't getting the job done. He hired McChrystal. McChrystal needs additional troops, and finally the president's delivering on his strategy and his campaign promise.

QUESTION: Thank you.

QUESTION: Senator, what -- this is my favorite question, but I always like the answers -- what issue are Iowans perhaps not enough aware of that they should become involved in during this -- this session of Congress?

GRASSLEY: Oh, I think the tax issues and the extent to which if they don't get involved and get Congress waking up, next year we're going to have the biggest tax increase in the history of the country without even a vote of Congress. We're going to find marginal tax rates going up from 35 percent to 41 or 42 percent. And what's important about that is you shouldn't be raising taxes when you're in a recession, and we may not be in much of a recession in Iowa compared to the rest (inaudible).

STAFF: Thank you, Jim and Maureen, for participating in today's public affairs program.

This has been Senator Chuck Grassley reporting to the people of Iowa.

GRASSLEY: Yes, thank you both very much.

QUESTION: Thank you, Senator.

QUESTION: Thank you, Senator.

GRASSLEY: Good-bye.

END

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