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 is Rick Morain with the Jefferson Herald.
Rick, your first question?
QUESTION: Thank you.
Good morning, Senator.
GRASSLEY: Hi. How are you doing?
QUESTION: Fine. Thank you.
You've always been a champion of whistleblower protection at the federal level, and sounds as though there's a -- you're working on a bill which would provide greater protection.
What would that do that's not now being done? And what are the chances of its success?
GRASSLEY: I think we have a good chance of success because I think we have a Democrat majority that tends to be a little more supportive of that type of legislation. And what our legislation deals with is trying to deal with whistleblowers in national security.
And, you know, there is a rationale for having maybe a little different rules for people that are national security that have access to secured information to make sure that none of that secured information gets out and to make sure that somebody's in the doing something that's going to hurt the national security of our country.
But beyond that, the bill doesn't do a whole lot different than just try to bring some justice to
whistleblowers that have connections with national security and to bring them in line with protections as closely as we can to what every other whistleblower anyplace else in the government might have.
And let me give you just a little bit of background so that you understand that a lot of the oversight work I do either comes from enterprising journalists like you or from mostly investigative-type journalists or from whistleblowers because there's nobody in Congress can have enough staff to know where all skeletons in the bureaucracy are buried know what all the problems are.
So I consider whistleblowers very patriotic people. Now, once in a while, you run into somebody that's got an ax to grind or, you know, maybe that doesn't make them a legitimate whistleblower, but I don't know that until you listen to them. But there isn't very often I come away without some good information from whistleblowers that get me to change behavior in government.
QUESTION: The health-care reform bill that's being considered and that you worked on very closely for a long time, as I understand it, would provide help for Medicare people, for doctors and hospitals in rural areas, provide some bonus money for rural areas like my county. It would help eventually to close the Medicare prescription drug cost gap. We have a lot of Medicare people in Green County and in rural Iowa.
My company here -- my newspaper company had a 44 percent increase in our health-care premium last year, and we're looking at another 56 percent increase this year. I've got a number of older people and some with health problems, and I want to keep them. So I want to provide good coverage.
We pay the full premium for the employee and 80 percent of the family coverage and the first half of the deductible. And as I understand it, the bill that's now under consideration would provide for companies like mine with relatively lower wages and fewer than 25 employees would provide tax credits of up to 50 percent of the cost of health insurance.
Why shouldn't I be for the bill?
GRASSLEY: Well, I think that we could do a lot more for small business if we set up an association health plan. So, let's say, through the National Newspapers Association, you will be in a pool of -- a national pool instead of a smaller pool. In fact, you're in your own little pool.
And when somebody gets sick, you have rates go up like you've seen go up -- or maybe they aren't sick, just because they're older. And getting you in a national pool would probably do a whole lot better than that tax credit.
But now a person who believes in tax credits -- I'm not here to bad mouth the tax credit -- and I am here to say that that part of the bill is better than what we have in present law now.
But if you -- I guess the way to answer your question why you shouldn't be for the bill -- it would be to say this. When you take all the analysis put together by the Joint Committee on Taxation, the president's own chief actuary, and the Congressional Budget Office, you find that this increases taxes. It increases premiums. It takes a half a trillion dollars out of Medicare, already in bad trouble, to set up a new entitlement program. And then it doesn't do anything about inflation in health care. And it even institutes some rationing of health-care delivery.
I think that you'd say, well, that really doesn't sound like reform to me. And it's completely contrary to what Senator Baucus and I started to do a year ago when we started working on it. And that is that we wanted to have it revenue neutral and lower the rate of inflation of Medicare to no more -- not Medicare -- health-care costs to no more than 1 percent above the regular cost of living.
And this bill doesn't do that. And I know that they tell you it's revenue neutral, but let me tell you, when CBO looks ahead ten years, that's all the further they look ahead, and this bill -- the expenditures of it doesn't begin until the year 2014. But the tax provisions begin right now.
So you've got ten years of revenue coming in and six years of program. That's like, you know, you'd pay for a house four years -- for four years before you got to move into it.
So if you really want to get a cost of this program, it's really a two and a half trillion dollars program starting in the year 2014, CBO looking ahead for ten years to 2024.
So I guess -- I don't know whether that sounds legitimate to you. And I'd surely have to have some sympathy for you wanting to be a good citizen and a good employer by providing health insurance for your employees and try to convince you that my reasons -- but my reasons override all the good in this bill, and I think there's an awful lot of good in the bill.
QUESTION: Does the United States have any leverage at all on Israel regarding the expansion of settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem?
GRASSLEY: You know, I think, it has a lot of leverage. I'm not sure I agree with the use of that leverage though. And the reason I don't agree with the use of that leverage is because the state of Israel is willing to recognize a Palestinian state. But I don't see the Palestinians saying that they're willing to recognize the right of Israel to exist.
And it's so basic, I don't know why we can't get an agreement unless the Palestinians don't want an agreement. And, you know, Israel gave up the Gaza Strip and was -- and that was in line with the 1994 Helsinki or Norway Agreement -- Oslo Agreement, I guess it was called.
And what did Israel get for giving up Gaza? They got bombardment from Gaza for a long period of time until they decided it step into it.
But, yes, we have got a lot of leverage because Israel needs us. But I hope that we don't make the mistake we did in 1939 when Jews leaving Germany didn't have any place to go. They came to the United States, and we didn't let them get off the ship, and the ship floated around the ocean for several months, eventually had to go back to Germany. And all those people ended up being gassed.
It seems to me that having a home for Jewish people is a very legitimate thing to do.
QUESTION: How does that relate to the expansion of settlements in East Jerusalem?
GRASSLEY: Well, it really doesn't. But I just thought I needed to give you that background. So let me answer your question.
It seems to me that Israel is hurting their own public relations by building these additional things. But the point is where they're building, if there was a Palestinian state, Israel wouldn't be building there.
So let's get a Palestinian state established, and let's have the Palestinians recognize Israel, and you don't have any problems.
QUESTION: Well, the Palestinians -- Israel wants to claim all of Jerusalem as its capital and says that the Palestinians don't have any claim to East Jerusalem.
GRASSLEY: Well, let's -- you're absolutely right. But let me put that in context.
That's one of two unsolved issues. When Arafat walked away from the table that Clinton had set up in the year 2000, when about 99.7 percent of all the issues between Israel and Palestine were settled, and somehow, you know -- did Arafat want an agreement or didn't he? That's the only question I can ask that's not answered in your question. But that's the best I can do.
GRASSLEY: I've got to say, thank you, Rick, for participating in today's public affairs program. This has been Senator Chuck Grassley reporting to the people of Iowa.