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 Cooley with KSIB radio in Creston and Rusty Ebert with the Van Buren County Register in Keosauqua. The first question will be from Michael Cooley.
QUESTION: Senator Grassley, a little bit locally, here, but still might have a federal tie, more and more, southwest Iowans, here in the Creston Radio listening area are worried about state government cutbacks, as well as reductions in staff, and worried about the possible reduction in services that might follow.
How do you see that impacting, possibly, federally run programs?
GRASSLEY: Well, it would only affect federally run programs from the standpoint that there's people in Congress that think that there ought to be a second stimulus. But I think people at large feel that the stimulus didn't really keep our unemployment under -- obviously didn't keep our unemployment under 8 percent, as was promised. And they didn't want to go that route again.
There might be some effort to fill what we call back-fill, state budgets. But I think that -- that we did that, to a great extent, last time. And -- and some states probably handled it very well. And obviously, Iowa still hasn't spent all of it.
But I don't know how much they've spent and haven't spent. And so, consequently, I don't know how far the unspent funds will go in helping the back-fill for 2010, like we did in 2011 -- I mean, 2009.
So it would only have an impact the extent to which the federal government might try to help states out.
But here you get into a -- and I'll stop with this -- you get into a very difficult situation. Some state legislatures and governors are more fiscally conservative than others and don't have the budget problem because they've been fiscally responsible.
So when you help out states that -- that have these terrible problems, you're somewhat penalizing people that were very -- in states that were very fiscally responsible.
QUESTION: Senator, Senator Reid recently said, at the breakthrough on the health care proposal, but I've noticed that there's no details released. Why would the Senate majority leader -- Senator Reid not give details on an important piece of legislation like this?
GRASSLEY: Yes, well, your eyes will glaze over as I explain this to you, but the -- the bottom line is that the Congressional Budget Office has to decide what he's given them, what it costs.
And they're very intellectually honest. And they said to him, if you share this with any other senator, then before we make this public to you -- or give it back to you, we've got to make it public to every senator.
And what Reid is trying to do is he'd -- he proposes some policy changes, but he doesn't know what they cost, and he doesn't want to be embarrassed until he gets something that -- that can fit within the parameters of the cost of the -- of the bill, right now, which is $847 billion.
And -- and he wants to be able to have the Congressional Budget Office come back to him and say, well, this is costing too much money; you're going to have to trim it back.
So he wants to trim it back until he gets something that's revenue-neutral. And if he tells everybody else, then -- if he tells other members -- like even in his own caucus, last might, at 5:00, he didn't give details to his members for the reason I just gave you. And so he's, kind of, holding his cards to his vest because he really doesn't know what he's doing is the right thing until he gets dollar amounts on it.
Now, it seems to me that we Republicans have a responsibility to remind people that these bills are being written in secret and that any revision that he gives ought to be on the Internet in 72 hours for us to study and for the entire country to look at if they want to, just like the whole bill had to be on the Internet for 72 hours.
QUESTION: Senator Grassley, kind of, a follow-up, as we continue talking about the health care bill. I know Iowans constantly seeing information about it in the news. If you had a chance to talk with Iowans, as in a way you do right now, what do you really want them to know about the latest developments?
GRASSLEY: Well, there's a lot of good in it, but people sitting around Creston in a coffee klatch talking about health care reform, and I came in and told them this answer to your question. If you sum this up -- all up, even though there's a lot of good portions of it, it's going to raise taxes. It's going to cut Medicare by $464 billion to set up a new program, and Medicare's already in trouble. It's going to raise premiums. And it's not going to cut down on inflation of health care.
Then these people sitting around Creston in their coffee klatch would say to Chuck Grassley: That doesn't sound like health care reform to me. And it is not health care reform, and it is going to cost jobs.
And people don't want their premiums to go up. They don't want their taxes to go up. And that's why this, in nationwide polling, even including in Iowa, this bill is not getting a favorable review. And it's too bad, because there's some good parts to it.
QUESTION: Thank you, Senator.
GRASSLEY: Yes.
QUESTION: Senator, in light of the recent developments of the Americans that were found in Pakistan trying to start a jihad, do you think this will speed up, or should it speed up, the investigation of the Fort Hood incident where people think it might be considered a terrorist incident?
GRASSLEY: Well, I think that investigation is going to be ongoing, and as long as nobody's stopping it, I think what you would say about these Northern Virginia people, these young people going back there to do jihad, is it brings emphasis to what happened at Fort Hood. And it brings emphasis to why we send more troops to Afghanistan. And it brings emphasis to why the Patriot Act needs to be reauthorized so that the CIA and the FBI can continue to do what they can to keep terrorist activity within the United States down.
I think that's what it does, and it's a very important reminder to us that we're not too far away from -- from what happened on 9/11, maybe only on a smaller scale now.
QUESTION: Thank you very much.
GRASSLEY: Yes.
QUESTION: Senator, what's your reaction on President Obama's recent acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize, as well as his subsequent speech?
GRASSLEY: Well, if I were going to get the Peace Prize, I would -- I would want people to compliment me for it because I think it's a very unique thing. And I believe I ought to, and do compliment him for getting it. But on the other hand, I'd have to say that there might be something I believe the -- with the Nobel Peace Prize Committee that decided he ought to get it 20 days after he was sworn in, because he didn't have much to show for his efforts at that point, and maybe their selection process it tends to denigrate the whole Nobel Peace Prize when they don't give more consideration to the performance of people that get it.
QUESTION: Senator, just going back on the health care, what do you think are the odds of the Senate and the House getting together and having a bill for President Obama to sign by the end of the year? What changes do you think? And what are the Republicans' obligations or what are they going to do in the meantime?
GRASSLEY: Well, Republicans are doing -- going to continue to do until this debate is over, what we're doing right now.
We're trying to tell them -- show the people our alternatives. And so most of the amendments of substance are coming from the Republican side. And we're trying to show what's wrong with the bill and what we would do to correct the bill, and so we could have a bipartisan bill in the end.
So bottom line of it is that, if 60 Democrats stick together and the House would go along with the Senate bill instead of ironing out the difference between the House and Senate in what we call a conference committee, the president could sign a bill before the end of the year.
But if -- if neither one of those happens, the most that could probably happen, well, is carry it over until next year.
Thank you, Michael and Rusty, for participating in today's public affairs program. This has been Senator Grassley, reporting to the people of Iowa.
QUESTION: Thank you very much.
QUESTION: Thank you, Senator.
GRASSLEY: Thank you both very much.