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 Jeff Bayer with
KZAT Radio in Tama and Magdalene Landegent with the Le Mars Daily
Sentinel. The first question will be from Jeff Bayer.
QUESTION: Yes, Senator. In the news today, GM has reported that
they're on a short lifeline, I guess, so to speak. What's the latest?
And will there be any more government help for any car makers?
GRASSLEY: I'm afraid that there will be. And I would think that
the best thing we could do to get to the bottom of this is to have
what we call a restructured bankruptcy. In other words, you would --
it would be a process of bankruptcy but be worked out outside of the
court in mutual agreement to bond holders, stockholders, management,
in this case, the federal government because we've got a lot invested
there and also the unions.
And then if there was a little bit of help at that point on
something that's restructured so that you know the restructuring is
actually taking place, then all that's finally done is the bankruptcy
court says, yes, this is OK.
So it's worked out ahead of time. It's a more negotiated
process. But it's under -- it's under the gun. You've got to get it
done.
And I think that anything short of that is a waste of the
taxpayer's money. And I emphasize that I voted against it in the
first instance, you know, back in December.
Le Mars?
QUESTION: My question has to do with schools. Our local schools
have been struggling to pay for teachers' salaries, but they do have
plenty of money to build and cover their infrastructure needs. Is
there any help in the stimulus bill that will help them pay for teach
years?
GRASSLEY: Yes, a lot but only for the next two years. So every
school board in Iowa is going to have to be careful how they spend the
money; that they don't get their budget jacked up to a point so that
they're only delaying in 2010 or 2011 making the same tough decisions
that they have to make right now.
Of course, if the economy turns around and the state puts more
state aid in, then maybe that wouldn't be a problem in 2011. But I
don't know whether, in 2009, you can count on it.
So Iowa is getting back several hundred millions of dollars in
school aid. And that will be disseminated to the school districts
under the school aid formula.
QUESTION: Uh-huh.
GRASSLEY: There will be additional money for Title 1. There
will be additional money for special education. And some of that
money that is going to go to the states through -- and the local
school districts -- through the state aid formula, some of that money
could be used by school districts, if they wanted to use it for
construction or repair, they wouldn't have to use it for teacher's
salaries.
This might make it possible so that your local school district
wouldn't have to be laid off. But now, you know, I can't say that for
sure...
QUESTION: Uh-huh.
GRASSLEY: ... because I don't know how much Le Mars gets under
the school aid formula.
QUESTION: Uh-huh.
GRASSLEY: And I don't know what your local school board is going
to decide to do with it. And I did indicate to you that the local
school board needs to be cautious about how they handle it so they
aren't just delaying tough decisions.
QUESTION: Exactly.
GRASSLEY: Yes.
QUESTION: Thank you.
GRASSLEY: Back to Tama?
QUESTION: I was -- this is a story, maybe, from last week or so.
But how serious is this FDA stuff about the dust?
GRASSLEY: Well, that would be EPA stuff.
QUESTION: EPA.
GRASSLEY: I think they're pretty serious, particularly,
considering the people that are going to be in charge of EPA for the
next four years at least. They are people that are very -- well, they
believe in a great deal of regulation is the best way to put it. The
more regulation, the better, I think, from their standpoint.
And, you know, I don't think they're very realistic. I mean,
just think EPA in the previous administration came out with -- because
of methane -- going to tax cow manure or cows because of their manure
-- dairy cows, $178. You know, you stop to think of that and you
wonder what planet did that guy come from.
And then we've been fighting this fugitive dust thing for a long
period of time. And you almost think people at EPA are oblivious to
the fact that God controls the wind and not the farmers. And so you
wonder what planet did they come from. And they could have come from
separate planets, too, you know.
So anyway, it's scary because, you know, how are you going to
combine beans? The only way you can combine beans was when the dew
was on. You can't combine beans when the dews are on. And, you know,
beans do cause dust. And dust comes -- does come out of the back end
of the combine.
And people driving down the rock road by my farm where it's so
dusty that I can't even open the windows in the summertime is -- do
they realize that Butler County and Grundy County, on that road,
can't keep their dust within their -- the fences of the two farms?
GRASSLEY: It's just ridiculous. You can't blacktop every county
road in Iowa. You couldn't afford it. And you can't be running down
those roads when it's not raining with watering equipment. And I just
wonder where they're coming from and, of course, we're going to have
to really ask them that question. Did you come from Mars or Venus?
Or maybe because you've been affected by the moon, maybe you came from
Jupiter. They've got nine moons there, you know.
QUESTION: I have a question for you on relating more to legal
immigration. With the economy lately, most of the buzz has been about
dealing with that situation. Has any changes in the legal immigration
legislation been going on at all?
GRASSLEY: Not since June of last year and maybe because of the
recession it might not happen. If we hadn't had a recession, I think
immigration would have been the number one issue even ahead of health
care reform on this president's agenda.
But with the recession and people being laid off, you know, and I
suppose less people coming to this country illegally to work because
there's not as many jobs, that I don't see it as a pressing issue.
Now, that's as a pressing issue to come up in the Senate. Now,
is it a pressing issue? Yes, it is. You know, it seems to me that
there's so much that we're in agreement on between Republicans and
Democrats on the issue of border fence, on more border patrol, on
using Social Security for every person to be hired, including, Chuck
Grassley, if I were hired by somebody, they'd have to check with
Social Security, and maybe increasing penalties on -- I'm trying to
think -- penalties on employers because they violate the law. And
maybe even on immigration for agricultural workers where there tends
to be a need.
I think there's pretty much agreement on all that stuff. You
know what really holds it up is what I call amnesty. There's other
people who might refer to it as earned citizenship.
But either way, what you're basically saying is 12 million people
came here illegally; we're just going to -- OK, they're staying here.
And, you know, I voted for that in 1986 when we had about 2 or 3
million people here illegally. We actually believed that if you did
that once, you'd solve the problem.
You know, when you ignore enforcement of the law and ratify
people's breaking the law, ha happens? You have more of it. So we've
got 12 million people here illegally now.
And so I can't go through that again. Otherwise my constituents
think I didn't learn anything from the mistakes of the '86 law. And
so -- but there's -- there's Democrats want amnesty. There's a few
Republicans want amnesty. But there's -- there's a few Democrats and
a lot of Republicans don't want amnesty. And that's what's held up a
legal immigration bill.
It hasn't kept me from working, though, on the fraud that's on
the H-1B program because Senator Sanders and I got such an amendment
in the stimulus package, as an example.
STAFF: Thank you, Jeff and Magdalene, for participating in
today's public affairs program. This has been Senator Chuck Grassley
reporting to the people of Iowa.
GRASSLEY: Just in case a talked too long in answering a
question, I might have time for a couple more questions if you've got
them.
QUESTION: I believe that will take care of it on this end.
GRASSLEY: OK. How about you up in Le Mars?
QUESTION: Maybe I'm kind of naive about this, but is there kind
of a plan in order to pay back the stimulus bill, the debt that we've
incurred?
GRASSLEY: Not the stimulus bill, but what you -- you maybe, like
a lot of my constituents, got the stimulus bill mixed up with the
bailout bill that passed in October or the -- and some of that money
was used for the auto industry thing.
On the stimulus bill, it's strictly expenditure. And it's debt
that will have to be paid back some day, yes, or interest paid on that
debt. But on the bailout bill, where they're putting money into
banks, and that's not what all the money is being used for, but a
large share of it's being used to do what we call liquefy banks.
The federal government takes preferred stock and we're guaranteed
the first two years, 5 percent dividend. After that, 9 percent
dividend. And the idea of it going from 5 to 9 is we want to
incentivize the banks to buy back their preferred stock.
So we're actually holding assets for a lot of that. But I can't
guarantee you that we're going to get back every dollar of those
assets we're holding. But the intention is that we will.
QUESTION: Thanks.
GRASSLEY: You bet.
OK. Anybody else?
OK. Goodbye.
QUESTION: Thank you.