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 Eric McKay with KHBT Radio in Humboldt and Rick Patrie with the Eldora Herald Ledger and Hardin County Index in Eldora.
The first question is from Eric McKay.
MCKAY: Senator, thank you for joining me. The Senate Finance Committee voted on the health care reform bill this week. It passed through, despite a no vote from you. What kept you from voting yes on the proposal?
GRASSLEY: Well, I think it's kind of a case of taxing too much. There's going -- there's about $400 billion or $500 billion in new taxes in there. It cuts in Medicare $404 billion, and you know how difficult it is to keep hospitals open in rural Iowa, and I think that's going to be a hardship in Iowa.
And then, you know, 85 percent of the people already have premiums -- or, I mean, 85 percent of the people already have health insurance with premiums. And these people, according to the Congressional Budget Office, are going to see their premiums go up. And I do think these things fit in the neighborhood of reform. I don't think that's what people are expecting.
And, you know, when this is all said and done, spending one-and-eight-tenths trillion dollars, we're still going to have 25 million people that don't have health insurance. I can go into more detail if you want to, but that's a highlight of why I voted the way I did.
PATRIE: Senator, this is Rick Patrie at the Eldora paper. I guess that I get a lot of e-mails here from all around the country, mainly on national issues, and everybody is just livid. I mean, they're -- I mean, they're all mad. And I just wondered, is that kind of the tone of things that you folks are getting out there, too?
GRASSLEY: Well, are you getting people that are mad on every subject or just mad on health care?
PATRIE: No, no, on every subject.
GRASSLEY: Well, I think, when I answer your question, you might become more cynical about Washington, and I don't want to make anybody more cynical. It's -- it's -- it's highly partisan, more so than at any time I've been in Congress. It's more partisan in the House of Representatives than it is in the Senate. I suppose it's because it's a smaller body and you get better acquainted with people. And it takes a certain amount of bipartisanship to get anything through the Senate, maybe not if 60 Democrats stick together, because they've got the votes, but this is the first time in about 40 years or 30 years that there's been this many of one political party.
But can I say this? And this is what may make you cynical. You probably got a distorted view of it because everything that you see on television, particularly if it's news reports, and you're -- and you're in journalism, and you probably know that a conflict's probably going to sell more news than what people that are buddy-buddy.
I like to leave -- use as an example Senator Baucus and I. I've been chairman of the committee six years prior to the -- to two years ago, and he's been chairman, now in his third year, and -- except here at the last minute on his health care reform, and maybe on three or four other issues over a period of 10 years, every bill that's come out of our committee has been a bipartisan bill.
So there are examples of bipartisanship, and I think we're held up as an example of a Republican and Democrat that can work together. But it's -- it's not good, but it's not as bad as -- as you see it. That would be the way to sum it up.
PATRIE: OK, thanks.
GRASSLEY: OK.
MCKAY: How do you find more -- more bipartisanship? And if things are so -- so tense right now on both sides, how do you -- how do you bridge that gap?
GRASSLEY: Well, part of the reason that things are tense is because, as previously reported from Eldora there, things back home are a little more sharp towards Congress than what you maybe would think, because they see so much of what we're doing, and it's -- and it's done more by the other political party.
But, you know, nationalizing General Motors, nationalizing banks, the Fed shoveling money out the airplane door, we've got a big budget deficit, going to be three times what it is if we don't intervene shortly. Let's see -- things like that, they just don't see things working.
And then you come out with a one-and-eight-tenths-trillion-dollar health care bill. And -- and it -- and it's like the straw that broke the camel's back. So as you saw in the town meetings, things are kind of edgy back home, and that makes them a little more edgy here.
But I think you promote bipartisanship by building relationships. Senator Baucus and I were never close until he rose to the point of being the senior Democrat in 2001 on that committee, and I became chairman in 2001. And he came to me and said, "Let's see if we can work together," and maybe both of us were kind of -- how would you say it -- questioning about whether or not we could work together.
But we started working together, and we found out that you can work together. And so it took, you know, somebody just suggesting that maybe we ought to do it.
And -- and there's a couple other instances I can give you. Now Senator Kennedy's dead, but he -- he and Senator Enzi were working pretty close together. But I think it takes personalities to do it and people that don't tend -- people that tend to negotiate from the center, instead of negotiating from the right and left fringes.
PATRIE: Rick Patrie again here. I was -- I noticed here recently, we've been so busy here with this storm story, I haven't paid attention to a lot of stuff, but I -- I understand there's been a request from a number of members of Congress for the USDA to make some big purchases. And I'm wondering, taking on from that, just what do you get as the feel of the state of the farm economy? I mean, the rest of the economy we hear a lot about, but what's -- what's your reading?
GRASSLEY: Well -- well, in -- in dairy and pork, people are bleeding. In -- in grains, because of the high cost of anhydrous, are being hurt. But I don't know whether anybody would claim that they're bleeding in the case of grain.
And so we're going to have a big drop-off in farm income for the year we're in. And I think maybe because costs are going to go down for next year that it looks a little better for next year, at least from the price of corn and the drop in pig prices. That might level out, but there's going to be a lot fewer people raising pigs, because they just can't make it over the top.
And buying pork will help some. I -- I -- it's odd. I was trying to get Secretary Vilsack to buy pork in a letter I sent in May. Finally got a letter back in July saying that they weren't going to. And then they announced on their own in August that they were going to buy some more pork.
But we also had put an additional request to buy more pork yet on top of what he has done. And it's quite legitimate for the federal government to buy pork, because some of your city folks might think, "Well, it's just bailing out the farmers." But the federal government does buy pork for commodity programs and hot lunch programs, so it's quite legitimate, when the price is low, for the federal government to stock up.
Thank you.
MCKAY: Senator, on a -- on a bit of a lighter side, you had a chance to meet with one of Humboldt's own recently. A student named Tyler Dix (ph) was in, met with you earlier this week. What kinds of things did you guys discuss? And -- and what's the general sense in meeting with some of the future voters of America?
GRASSLEY: Yes, it was with a young political leadership conference. And I kind of make a point -- and there's only been once this year that I haven't been able to meet with students, and that was a couple of weeks ago, when I was tied up in the health committee debate -- I meet with them for 15 minutes. We usually get our picture taken. And then what I do is I sit down and tell them a couple things, and then I say, "Do you have any questions?"
And what I try to tell them is, when they go to college, I have seven college interns every semester. And if they want to come to Washington and do for three months what they're doing for one week under that program, they can make application. And I tell them -- to try to encourage them, I tell them that half of my staff are former interns, as an example.
And then I -- I also tell them that they can get information about that off my Web site. And then the other thing I -- I try to tell them a little bit about my background of getting into politics and where I live and things of that nature. And then I let them ask questions, and it's that simple.
But I want to -- I want to -- I want to be a resource person for them, and that's what I'm trying to be. It's the same reason I visit high schools as much as I can.
Thank you, Eric and Rick, for participating in today's public affairs program. This has been Senator Chuck Grassley reporting to the people of Iowa.
Thank you both very much.