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 Michael Earl, with KDSN Radio in
Denison, and Ron Slechta with the Kalona News in Kalona.
The first question will be from Michael Earl.
QUESTION: Good morning, Senator. A question on health care. I
know you're working intricately with that. Where is that process at
right now? And are there multiple parties that are involved in that
legislation?
GRASSLEY: Yes, there are multiple parties involved in two ways:
groups of senators, one Health Committee, the other one Finance
Committee, as groups are somewhat involved. And then there would be
negotiations going on one-on-one between Senator Enzi and Senator Dodd
for the Health Committee, and Senator Baucus and me for the Finance
Committee.
And this is the first interview I've had where I can't say we're
still on schedule. From January until now, yesterday I would have
said we're on schedule. Senator Baucus, for reasons -- for two
reasons -- has decided to put this off a few days, and it could be
that it wouldn't come up then again until the July break is over.
That's the Fourth of July break, one week.
And the reason, number one, there's some policy that has not been
compromised yet. And number two, there is the issue of the
Congressional Budget Office having to take a lot of time to do their
job right, to feel out what things cost and things of that nature.
And I don't want to blame CBO entirely for that because when they
don't get policy from us timely, they can't do their work timely.
So you know, those two factors working together has caused delay
in our committee. But in the Health Committee, they're moving ahead.
But they're moving ahead in a partisan way because they put down a
Democratic bill and all Republicans can do is offer amendments.
Senator Baucus and I are working in a bipartisan way, which means that
Senator Baucus, even though he's in the majority, did not kind of put
down a take-it-or-leave-it thing of change-it-if-you've-got-the-votes-
to-change-it attitude.
GRASSLEY: We developed from a blank sheet of paper a product
that we hope will be, in the final analysis, will be bipartisan.
Because we feel that restructuring 16 percent of the gross national
product ought to be done in a -- in a bipartisan way with a broad
consensus that it ought to be done because no other bill that Congress
has ever worked on 225 years has done that.
STAFF: Ron, you can go ahead with your first question.
QUESTION: OK, I'm somewhat concerned about this health issue,
too. My in-laws are from Canada, and I would hope that you aren't
designing a system that is similar to that or...
GRASSLEY: Well, let me tell you, I'm glad you brought that up.
And we're not, from my point of view. But there is people in Congress
who directly think that we ought to do that -- and Senator Sanders of
Vermont is one of those. But there are still a large number of the
Democrat Caucus who would like to do that.
There's -- almost everybody in the Republican Caucus does not
want to do it. But then there's an indirect way of people trying to
do that, and it's called a government-run plan. And the idea is you
need more competition.
Well, the reason I fear that that's a back door approach is
because Lewin is a think tank that studies health issues. They've
said if you go that route, because the government's power to set
prices and to -- to -- the power to tax is the power to destroy.
That's an old axiom. That pretty soon, $120 million get into a
government plan and pretty soon then you drive up the premiums on the
50 million people that are left in a private plan; and pretty soon
then they crowd out, and pretty soon you have a government-run plan
totally, which would be a single-payer like Canada.
GRASSLEY: We don't want to go the route or Canada. Now, I don't
know whether, Ron, this is what your relations is telling you, but we
-- we feel that it would ration care. We feel that, for instance,
it's wrong to wait three months for an MRI in Canada when you can come
across the border and get it right away.
And Canada brags about having one system. Really, they've got
two systems. One is the United States and the second one is their
own. You know, suppose we had a Canadian-style system. Where would
we go for health care? To Mexico, for instance?
So we don't want that to happen. And one of the ways to keep it
from happening is for your -- for you and people like you that know of
instances in Canada, talk all about the rationing that goes on up
there, or maybe you want to call is denial and delay.
QUESTION: You've got a good handle on that, because that's
what's happening.
GRASSLEY: Yes. Let's go back, then, should be?
QUESTION: Sir, a lot of money's been spent from the federal
government and a lot of it is kind of just created out of thin air.
Are there any inflationary fears about all this spending?
GRASSLEY: Oh, there's tremendous fear. We're going to have
hyper-inflation within a few years if something like this doesn't
happen. And this has to happen. And it's just the reverse of what
has happened. We flooded the market with money because consumers
weren't spending so there was a vacuum that government could fill
without doing harm. In fact, maybe doing some good, although I have my
doubts about that and I voted against most of what's going on.
But what you have to have is the reverse. You have to have
government very definitely and quickly clamp down on spending, and you
have to have the Federal Reserve soak up a lot of the dollars that
they put out into the economy. In other words, do the opposite of
printing money; take money out of the economy. And unless we do that,
we're going to have hyper-inflation and there's a great deal of fear
about it.
Back to Ron?
QUESTION: OK. One person has asked me to ask you where you
stand on a gas tax?
GRASSLEY: I'm against it for now, and I might be against it in
the future. But right now, I have to be against it because...
QUESTION: For what reason?
GRASSLEY: ... because -- because of -- because of the recession
and raising taxes in a recession would be a very bad thing to do.
OK? Back to Michael.
QUESTION: One of the things I always get a little bit afraid of
is that sometimes bills are rushed through and the speed of the bill
sometimes leaves stuff out. And I've noticed that a lot of bills are
being passed in a relatively quick fashion. Is that a concern?
GRASSLEY: Yes, it is a concern, particularly on this health care
issue. Because, you know, it's not just changing a little bit here
and there in health care.
GRASSLEY: It's dramatically changing health care. Because
there's some perverse incentives in our present system that need to be
-- need to be changed because they're wasting a lot of money and
there's a lot of fraudulent -- fraud in the programs.
I'm talking mostly about Medicare and Medicaid, but I suppose
there's some fraud against private insurance as well. So we need to
deal with that.
But the most important thing is, we're restructuring the entire
-- 16 percent of the economy. And it ought to be done slowly.
Now, me and my party feel it was moving too fast. We couldn't
stop it if the Democrats decided they wanted to go ahead. But what I
said, in answering your first question, is the process has, kind of,
slowed itself down. And so there's more time to look at it now and to
give it more serious thought.
QUESTION: OK, I had noticed that a lot of the crazy ideas in
Congress are coming from some of the people that have been there for
ages. And I know you're running for election, and that's not
reflection on you, but how do you feel about setting some type of a
term limit on senators and congressmen?
GRASSLEY: Well, you know, it -- some people -- the way I answer
this question, you would say you're intellectually dishonest; if you
think 12 years is enough, how come you're running for the 13th year?
Well, I voted for it in 1890 -- not 1890...
(LAUGHTER)
... 1996, I voted for it. And it got -- well, it probably got
almost a majority vote, but it takes a two-thirds vote, because you
have to amend the Constitution.
And it was a real strong issue at that time. But it's never been
a strong issue since.
So here's what I say about it. I didn't quit after 12 years,
even though I voted for it, because I think Iowa ought to be treated
like other states. If other states are going to build up seniority,
then Iowa needs seniority, and that's what I have now.
I'm in a position to work for Iowans. But if they -- if the
people of Iowa adopted a constitutional amendment saying I had served
long enough, then I'm going to abide by the constitution and not find
it.
And so that's, kind of, where we are.
Thank you, Michael and Ron, for participating in today's public
affairs program. This has been Senator Chuck Grassley, reporting to
the people of Iowa.