A copy of Grassley's letter to Daschle follows here.
June 26, 2002
Senator Tom Daschle
Democratic Leader
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
Dear Senator Daschle:
I was pleasantly surprised to read comments you made on the issue of a Medicare prescription drug benefit during your recent fundraising visit to my home state of Iowa. You were quoted in the Sioux City Journal as saying the following:
I'm not willing to accept no action on prescription drugs this year. It's absolutely essential with all the people in Iowa and South Dakota who need drug coverage, with the cost of drugs going up as dramatically as they are ? we've got to do it this year. . . . This cannot be something we can't get done. We've got to work together. There's got to be bipartisanship and we've got to find common ground.
I am glad that you heard the strong feelings of Iowans for action this year on prescription drugs. I found your statements most encouraging because you have apparently reconsidered your stated intention to bypass the Committee on Finance and take a prescription drug bill directly to the Senate floor, unless the Committee meets an unreasonable July 15 deadline. You dictated this deadline without warning to the Chairman and Committee members last week, citing the fact that the Senate's production to date this year under your leadership has left little floor time for Medicare ? a difficulty for which the Finance Committee is certainly not responsible.
As you well know, the Finance Committee is the only venue in which a bill that reflects "bipartisanship" and finds "common ground" -- and can obtain the necessary sixty votes on the floor -- can be crafted. Indeed, I am pleased to inform you that the compromise approach on which a number of Committee members have been working, adding a permanent drug benefit to Medicare, has enough support to serve as a basis for a Committee product, if you will allow the Committee to work.
Taking a bill directly to the floor, where we all know that a partisan Democratic bill will not command the sixty votes needed for passage, would be tantamount to a death sentence for any opportunity of passing a Medicare drug benefit this year. I'm concerned that it would be a statement that you want a campaign issue, not a bill signed into law by the President. I am certain that you do not wish to be considered, throughout the nation and in Iowa in particular, as the one responsible for preventing a drug benefit from being enacted this year. Accordingly, I ask that you demonstrate clearly that your comments to my Iowa constituents about "bipartisanship" and "common ground" were sincere, by expressly disavowing any intention to bypass the Finance Committee and bring a bill directly to the floor.
The beginning of this afternoon's members meeting will provide an opportunity for you to make this commitment. If you will do so, I will pledge to work with you in the Finance Committee to find common ground so that we can deliver a bipartisan Medicare prescription drug benefit this year, as Iowans ? and all Americans ? rightly demand.
Sincerely,
Charles E. Grassley
Ranking Member