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 Rick Hanson with KJAN Radio in Atlantic and Gretchen Daniels with the Thompson Courier and Rake Register in Thompson.
The first question will be from Rick Hanson.
HANSON: Senator, thank you for having me this morning.
Well, you're just off the floor there from the Senate with regard to Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, and she's avoided some of the hot button issues in her Senate confirmation hearings. And I'm just wondering if you think that she should have tipped her hand about how she really feel with regard to certain issues, like gun control, abortion...
GRASSLEY: Well, you're right. She has avoided answering questions, but I'd have to -- I'd have to say from that standpoint that she's probably not a whole lot different than Republican nominees or previous Democrat nominees to the court, from the standpoint of it's very difficult to get a definitive answer from all these because they always keep going back to referring to the bar association ethics that you can't comment on what might be a pending case, and almost every question you ask they would perceive as being a pending case.
GRASSLEY: So it's very difficult. So we, kind of, have to read between the lines. And the main point that we're trying to ferret out about her, is she going to legislate from the bench or is she going to interpret law?
It's my job to legislate, because that's part of the political process in our country.
QUESTION: And if I could have a quick follow-up, how might her appointment affect campaign finance reform?
I'm hearing some talk about that today, too.
GRASSLEY: Yes. My guess is that her -- she probably would feel that Congress definitely can put restrictions on the constitutional right of free of speech.
It's something that I say we ought to have -- we ought to have control over finance money. But I would legislate that everything, every penny ought to be totally transparent and that restrictions are a limit on free speech.
I think she probably would take the view that some limit on campaign contributions is not a limit on free speech, first amendment rights, and so she would differ with me on that.
I would not say that that would be a crucial factor, though, in my voting for or against her.
QUESTION: My question is on the health care reform. You'll probably understand where my -- my thoughts are coming from on this, but the other day, when I was making deliveries, I came across 1040 and was listening to Des Moines and heard about Rush Limbaugh talking about the health care reform taxes.
And if everything that Obama wants to put into the taxes -- it would raise our taxes to the 50 percent margin. And his point of view was that, if you get to the 50 percent margin, people will cut back on spending, savings, et cetera.
And I'm looking at, already, the economy that we have from this year versus the high gas prices from last year.
QUESTION: And we still haven't really recovered from that.
GRASSLEY: Yes.
QUESTION: And I'm just seeing more and more businesses, you know, go bankrupt. I mean, I belong to an RSS feed that gives me the weekly update as to which businesses are filing for chapter 11.
So I'm wondering, can we afford to pay for these reforms that he would like to have? And how are you going to be either voting for these or viewing towards these and that sort of thing?
GRASSLEY: Well, he's talking, I think, about the House bill that increases the income tax with a 5.5 percent surtax, and it would be a killer, particularly for small business. I would not take that route. I would take -- and by the way, I'm in the middle of some of these negotiations, but I'm involved as a Republican in the only possible bipartisan bill in the Congress.
There are three venues. One is the House of Representatives and what Pelosi's going to get through the House -- a very Democratic bill, partisan bill. Then you've got Senator Kennedy's bill coming out of the Senate Health Committee.
And then I think the most important committee dealing with it is the Finance Committee, and I hope to be part of a bipartisan bill, and I think -- and I hope that it's one that is very moderate in its approach, not only from the standpoint of what we do as far as health care policy is concerned, what we do about cutting down on the inflation of health insurance, and not having the federal government take over health insurance. And in the final analysis, the extent to which money is raised, that it is more raised from money saved within the waste of health care than comes from increased taxes, although there will probably be some increased revenue, but it wouldn't be targeted towards killing small business.
QUESTION: And, Senator, you mentioned, as a followup to that, too, on CSPAN last night, on the Senate floor, that there's going to be -- some of the plans proposed would hurt small businesses.
Can you offer some thoughts on how we can get coverage for more Americans without having to penalize those individuals and employers who can't afford to purchase health insurance?
I know you mentioned there's a couple, two or three bill, that are floating around.
GRASSLEY: Well, there is -- there is a contribution from the pharmaceutical association, but most of what we're dealing with is cutting down on costs and waste within health insurance already, changing the perverse incentives in health care that encourage doctors to tell you, "I want to see you every day and twice on Sunday," in other words, because he gets paid every time he sees you.
We want to change that reimbursement based upon quantity to quality, or, you might call it, pay for performance, so things are -- doctors and hospitals are incentivized to do things right the first time.
QUESTION: And I guess my next question will be, if I can -- that was a followup to Gretchen's, but I'll it as brief as possible: There are a lot of Americans facing foreclosure on their homes these days, and the number is actually on the rise, but 1.5 million during the first half of this year alone.
The Obama administration proposes a -- has a $50 billion plan to try to get lenders to modify mortgages.
Should the government take a hands-off approach to this? I mean, obviously they didn't when it came to the major financial lenders of mortgages and things like that, bailing out AIG. But should they be trying to bail out homeowners, or should they force Americans to take responsibility for their decision, to live within their means?
GRASSLEY: Well, you surely wouldn't bail out every homeowner, for the simple reason that some of them probably shouldn't have the home in the first place. If they don't have the ability to repay a renegotiated loan, then you shouldn't be doing it.
But if you've got the possibility of them continuing to pay when things are negotiated down, the answer is yes, we ought to be doing something.
But it isn't a case of just the federal government putting taxpayer money into it. It's a case, too, of the banks that shouldn't have lended money on blue sky assessments of property when the loan was made. The institution's going to have to eat some of it as well.
GRASSLEY: And then maybe even in the case of the -- of the homeowner, you know, maybe a rate of interest that reflects bad judgment on their part for taking a loan on a house that maybe they shouldn't -- should have found out what the true value was before they got the loan.
STAFF: Gretchen?
QUESTION: My question is again about the health care, but I'm curious as to your views on the health savings account. I guess instead of having government involved with a health care tax and stuff, I don't see why we can't go to the private section and do our own health savings accounts, and maybe without the high deductibles.
GRASSLEY: I'm a strong backer of health savings accounts. And what is the philosophy behind health savings accounts? That you can put money away for the first dollars that are going to be saved, and that's going to be tax free, and it will never be taxed as long as you spend it on health -- on health and medicine. And you do that. But the reason you have to have a catastrophic policy to go with it is that your -- your health savings account is just for the first dollars and have you decide, first of all, incentive to save, and the incentive comes from not being taxed on that money, and then for you to make a decision instead of your insurance company making a decision on what you're going to spend up front. But then when you have a catastrophic situation, that's why you have to have the catastrophic policy to go with it. And the two together give you full insurance.
STAFF: Thank you Rick and Gretchen for participating in today's public affairs program. This has been Senator Chuck Grassley reporting to the people of Iowa.