Street Sweep - Transcript

CNNFN

SHOW: STREET SWEEP 03:00 PM Eastern Standard Time

September 1, 2004 Wednesday

Transcript # 090104cb.l06

HEADLINE: Perspective On Presidential Race , CNNfn

GUESTS: Sen. Charles Grassley

BYLINE: Christine Romans

BODY:
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNNfn ANCHOR, STREET SWEEP: Republican Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa urged President Bush this week to do a better job distinguishing his policies from John Kerry's. Senator Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee joins us from Madison Square Garden with his perspective on the race, and what the president has to say tomorrow night about the economy. He is from my home state of Iowa. Welcome to the program, Senator.

SEN. CHARLES GRASSLEY, ® IOWA: Glad to be with you, Christine.

ROMANS: Let's talk a bit about what you think the president should do to differentiate himself more with John Kerry, and really stand out to those undecided voters out there.

GRASSLEY: Well, I think, number one, Senator Kerry wanted to avoid his senate record in his own speech. Hardly referred to it. And I think we need to make Senator Kerry's record more clear out here on the campaign trail between now and election. I think the president is the key one to do that. But I can do it, and the vice president can do it. A lot of other people. But it needs to be done. Secondly, there's a lot of things that now senator-for instance, for those of us in the Midwest, that we're interested in, that Senator Kerry never much cared about until he started running for president.

And you're from Iowa. You understand what ethanol is, alternative energies. Solar based, renewable. Senator Kerry's discovered that since he's been campaigning in Iowa. He wants a national energy policy. Well, we're two votes short of killing a Democrat filibuster to get to an energy policy. He and Edwards can be that 59th and 60th vote and help us get that done. Those things need to be pointed out.

ROMANS: Yesterday we had the CEO of MidAmerican energy holdings on, you know, which is a utility of the Midwest, and they're trying to build some big wind farms, the biggest wind farms in the world, out in Iowa. Alternative energy, you know, so important with energy prices this high. What kind of work are you going to do, regardless of who's the president? What are you going to do in Washington to make sure that we can get some of these new energy plans out there?

GRASSLEY: OK. Well three times through the United States Senate, I've gotten legislation through that would have the wind energy tax credit reinstated after I got it authorized the first time in 1992. We'd extend the ethanol tax credit. We would set up a ethanol likes (ph) tax credit for bio-diesel made from soybeans so we can have cleaner burning diesel fuel. I would set up biomass tax credits. These things have passed the Senate. They're in conference now between the House and Senate.

But I also want to emphasize they were also part of that bill last November that was filibustered by the democrats that we were two votes short. And Kennedy and Edwards weren't there. So that's why I'm saying what I can do, but then you get stymied by a Democrat filibuster. And they want it now. They ought to put their vote where their mouth is and come back the day after Labor Day, and vote for it, and get an energy bill to the president.

ROMANS: Senator, are we going to hear much from the president on Thursday about the jobs situation, and how he has sort of helped this economy come back from the September 11th attacks and the recession?

GRASSLEY: Well, you know, I wish it were possible for people just to realize that in the last 40 years, 5.5 percent unemployment has only been around about five or six years out of that period of time. This is full employment if you look at it historically. I would think 11 months of job growth, of 1.5 million jobs ought to prove to the American people that this economy is very positive.

I know what the Democrats are saying. They're saying that a million jobs are less now than they were when this president became a president. But, they don't say that the economy lost 1 million jobs three months after September the 11th, and surely the president of the United States can't be blamed for that when terrorists attacked New York, and the economy shut down. Consumers didn't buy. Investors didn't invest. But somehow, he's getting blamed for it. Now what he needs to do I think, is talk positively about every economic indicator pointing positively. And that doesn't happen very often. And they are.

ROMANS: Senator, I think what some people get concerned about is that yes, that's true. That the jobs have been created quite nicely over the past eleven months compared to the three years before that. But income growth has been stagnant. We're talking about outsourcing of American jobs, and corporate profits have been fantastic. So I think some people are concerned that American CEOs are getting the benefit of this recovery, not American workers.

GRASSLEY: Well, if corporate profits are awful high, the corporation benefits from that and the stockholders. The CEO only benefits from his compensation package. And he pays taxes on that. Now, wouldn't it be odd if we had all of these corporations not hiring people, and they weren't making any profit? Don't we want corporations to make profit so they can hire people? Then you mention outsourcing. How come you mention outsourcing without telling the American people that we have a favorable balance of trade of more insourcing than we do outsourcing?

ROMANS: We can argue about the difference between regular trade two-way trade and getting access to the American market, which is insourcing, or just swapping out American labor for cheap labor. That's a debate we'll have on another day. Senator Chuck Grassley, thank you so much for joining us.

GRASSLEY: Thank you.