GRASSLEY: The week of January 11th, before Congress came back into session, I held constituent meetings in 21 counties, probably had about 24 meetings throughout those 21 counties.
A variety of subjects were brought up, including agriculture and the economy. Rural America has been hard hit by the recession. We're seeing processing plants closing, farmland values going down for the first time in a year, hog producers operating in the red -- and that's been for years now -- and dairy prices going down and, of course, dairy producers having to scrape through.
On Wednesday evening, President Obama will be delivering his State of the Union Address, and that will be before a joint session of Congress. I understand that the president will finally turn his focus to the economy. I hope he remembers the Americans who feed and fuel the world.
There's a lot that we can do for the rural economy. For instance, we're working to get biodiesel tax credit extended, and we need it take care of the estate tax. We also need to ensure that the job-killing anti-agriculture agenda with cap-and-trade is kept out of any legislation. We need to pass a lot of trade agreements with other countries to help our exports. All of this will help farming, and not doing some of the things that are on the agenda will help agriculture by not doing them.
I'll be looking to hear how President Obama intends to create jobs in rural America.
Dan Looker?
QUESTION: Good morning, Senator.
I hate to sound like a broken record, but what's the status of the biodiesel tax credit. Senator Harkin said last week in his press conference he was hoping it would come up within three weeks. And I just wondered if you have had a chance to talk to Senator Baucus about it.
GRASSLEY: Yes. You know, last week, I said ask me on Wednesday, but the Baucus meeting last week was canceled after I had talked to you because he had to go down to the White House to visit with Vice President Biden about the debt limit bill that's before the Senate.
So today is our first meeting. I expect this to be on the agenda. I don't have the agenda in front of me. Sometimes, the agenda isn't put together until this very day. I'll be glad to talk to you tomorrow if there's anything.
But I think Senator Harkin would be right if he expects the committee to act within the next two or three weeks. I think that's very doable. But I'm not sure that it's doable to get it through the Senate by three weeks because I believe it'll probably be tied to the estate tax legislation, and that's going to be -- take some time to work that out and get that out for debate on the Senate floor. And it may even take some time on the Senate floor.
But it would be my hope that we would have this to the president by the week we take off for town meeting recesses -- president's holiday. That week we will not be in session. And that -- and Friday or Saturday before a week recess is sometimes deadlines that things really happen.
QUESTION: Excuse me. What date would that be then?
GRASSLEY: What's the third month of February?
QUESTION: Oh, OK. I can...
GRASSLEY: It's that week.
QUESTION: OK. Thank you.
GRASSLEY: Now, I go to Tom Rider.
QUESTION: Good morning, Senator.
Senator, I was wondering if there's enough votes to pass the Murkowski EPA amendment on the endangerment thing -- if you thought there is?
GRASSLEY: I don't have the slightest idea, but it's not one of those things that needs 60 votes because it's on kind of what you call a fast track -- a little bit like a reconciliation bill. It has to be voted up or down within a certain number of hours. And I don't know about -- and I think it's kind of what you call a privilege motion. It can be brought up, and when it's brought up, it's got to be voted up on with it.
So you do get an opportunity to vote, and you don't have to have a super majority to get it passed.
QUESTION: Do you think it will pass? Are you supporting it?
GRASSLEY: Oh, well, I'm supporting it because I'm a co-sponsor. I don't have the slightest idea if it would pass, but I'm glad that it's introduced, and I want it brought up.
Tom Steever, Brownfield?
QUESTION: Good morning, Senator.
The president has endorsed legislation to create a bipartisan commission on deficit reduction. What do you think the chances are of it getting through the Senate and then, perhaps, getting through the House because there is some resistance from Speaker Pelosi?
GRASSLEY: If there's resistance by Pelosi, it wouldn't get through. But my guess is that it's got a majority vote in the Senate but not 60 votes. And this is probably one of those votes that's going to require 60 votes, so I don't think it's going to be adopted.
QUESTION: Do you support it?
GRASSLEY: No. And I don't support it because -- not because I'm against deficit reduction, but I'm against is because it is an excuse to increase taxes. And I've been involved in a lot of negotiations over the years and seen negotiations I haven't been involved with that have had some sort of theory, well, we'll increase taxes and cut spending.
But I see the tax increases go through, but I never see a serious effort to cut spending. In fact, I think there's a rule of thumb that, for every dollar increase of taxes, you get $1.15 of expenditures. It's not the way to dig yourself out of a hole.
And then the other thing is I think that, over a 40-year period of time, we've had about 18 to 19 percent of the gross national product be tax collected by the federal government. I don't think that's been harmful to the economy. I think it's a level of taxation that people accept.
And I believe that efforts to go above that is taking more money out of the taxpayers' pocket. And if you have 535 members of Congress spend money, it is not done in a dynamic way as if 137 million other taxpayers had money in their pocket that they can spend -- it does more economic good, creates more jobs.
And so I don't want any legitimacy to be brought to tax increases. I see it as detrimental to the development of the economy and a deprivation of economic freedom.
Bob Quinn?
Chris Clayton?
QUESTION: Senator, let's follow up on the deficit issues and cuts. You talked last week about your concern about making cuts to crop insurance. And I've looked at the CBO baseline for 2007 and 2008 when it comes it crop insurance and the projected 5.6 billion that was a cut for crop insurance. And the -- can you really classify that as cut when it was essentially a reduction in the growth of spending over the next ten years?
GRASSLEY: No.
QUESTION: With crop insurance?
GRASSLEY: No. And I get caught up in the same lingo that's used in Washington, and I often caution against doing that, and you've cautioned me against it correctly. A cut can only be considered a cut if it's less this year than last year. And if somebody asks for a hundred-dollar raise and they only get a $90 raise, I don't think they got a $10 cut.
But in Washington, D.C., that's the lingo that's used. And I want to go by how much of an increase over the previous year is a raise and not an expectation -- a cut from expectations. So I agree with you.
QUESTION: So then the crop insurance industry has not taken a $5 billion cut from the Farm Bill as everybody has been, you know, putting out these news releases that they took...
GRASSLEY: No.
QUESTION: ... dramatic cuts in the Farm Bill.
GRASSLEY: Well, you know, they -- they took cuts in the basis for deciding how much they get paid, but when prices were very high, then they got paid premiums that were -- that were higher. And so they had greater income.
QUESTION: Well, the CBO baseline actually jumped dramatically from 2007 to 2008 even though the actual indemnity lowered over that time. I guess that was projected because of higher crop prices over the next ten years.
But, nonetheless, you know, there was an increase in actual spending in crop insurance over the next ten years.
GRASSLEY: Now, what I look at here when I make a decision in this area isn't X number of dollars. I look at what the policy is that we established. And in order to service farmers, we wanted to make sure that there was the personnel in the private companies to insure to make sure that the farmers got serviced because we wanted to promote risk taking.
So what we're after here is, if you're comparing anything I've said recently about crop insurance, it's my desire to maintain the personnel to service farmers so that we get crop insurance sold to the 92 percent of the people that presently have it. And if there's disaster, that those disasters can be serviced and make sure that people collect a fair amount of money.
OK. Let's go on to Stacia.
OK. I've gone through the entire list. Anybody that we didn't call or anybody that's got a follow-up?
OK. Thank you all very much.
END