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 Darin Svenson with
KDEC Radio in Decorah and Eric Owomoyela with the Mt. Pleasant News
in Mount Pleasant.
The first question will be from Darin Svenson.
QUESTION: Senator, President Obama assigned another form of
economic stimulus into law yesterday. What's a fair amount of time
for us constituents to judge whether this thing is or is not working
in the economic, hopefully, turnaround?
GRASSLEY: Well, thank you, Darin and Eric, for participating. I
appreciate it very much.
The answer to your question, let me clarify one thing. The
technical term "stimulus" was a bill that passed a week ago signed by
the president. And I'll answer your question on that.
But let me clarify what passed yesterday was what we call the
appropriation bills that we have to have to fund the federal
government for the rest of this fiscal year because we didn't get the
job done last fall.
And so let's go back to your question about the stimulus. Well,
the idea is, in a two-year period of time, spending about half of the
money that's in the stimulus bill in that period of time, every dollar
that the states get, they have to be committed to spending -- start
out spending in 120 days. That's what we call "shovel-ready
projects." And then the rule of use-it-or-lose it within a two-year
period of time or you -- it's -- you aren't going to get it.
And so the answer to your question is it's supposed to be turning
the economy around by the end of this year into next year. But I
hope, you know, I'm going to make you cynical when I say this and,
hopefully, you know it anyway. Government isn't a sound science. And
so there's no way that I can guarantee you that this money that's
going to be spent will actually do what you say it's going to do.
But, also, it's not the only thing that we have in it. In other
words, the spending money, because don't forget about a third of
what's -- actually 36 percent of what in this bill affects tax policy.
And most of that tax policy is less money being withheld from
people for the rest of this year with the idea that more money in your
paycheck from week to week, you will spend it and so it'll go towards
the 70 percent of the economy that is consumer and beef up that end up
it as well.
So you're looking at infrastructure spending as well as consumer
spending as part of this bill to rejuvenate the economy. Now, if I
can also say one additional thing you didn't ask, and that is that I
voted against it not because of what I just explained to you, but half
of the spending in this bill -- a little over half of the spending in
this bill isn't going to be spent until out years after 2010. So it's
not stimulus. And it was only used by the leaders of the Congress to
avoid the congressional appropriation process which is where it ought
to be considered because that's where you measure priority.
You don't spend -- pass those bills in two weeks like the
stimulus bill. You spread that out over a period of four or five
months to give more deliberation. And just one example, medical --
computerized medical records, I like that program but only 3 percent
of that $12 billion that's in this bill is going to be spent in 2009
and 2010. And it ought to have gone through the regular appropriation
process.
Let's go to Eric.
QUESTION: Yes. Senator, the president has also outlined his
goals for the 2010 budget. And one of the thing that made headlines
was -- is his treatment of agricultural subsidies. I'm wondering if
you could give me -- do you have a sense of how this new
administration is going to differ from President Bush's?
GRASSLEY: Yes. On agriculture?
QUESTION: Yes.
GRASSLEY: On the point that you brought up, I don't think
there's going to be much difference. I'll explain that in just a
minute.
I want to give you an overview of that budget just in case we
don't get a chance to go into it. At the end of ten years, it's still
showing a tripling of the national debt. So in an overview, it spends
too much, it taxes too much, and it borrows too much.
Now, in regard to the agricultural policies, the one area where
it deals the most with the farmer safety net is pretty much like what
Bush wanted to accomplish. And we didn't -- I agreed with Bush on it,
and I agree with Obama on it. But we weren't able to get it done in
the Farm Bill. So this gives us another bite at the apple.
And that is the problem of 10 percent of the biggest farmers
getting 72 percent of the benefits out of the Farm Program, and they
follow the suggestion that Senator Dorgan and I, in a bipartisan way,
have been pursuing for four or five years. And that is to cap it at
$250,000.
Now, the administration goes one step further and wants to take
direct payments away from any farmer that has a gross income of more
than a half a million dollars. Now, there's one word left out, and
maybe I could buy into that part of the program. But the way it is, I
can't.
The one word left out is the word "adjusted." In other words,
gross income has nothing to do with a farmer's profit. And so we need
to make sure that it's adjusted gross income at some figure that we
would cut out direct payments. I don't believe direct payments should
be cut out, though. And that's why I think we need a limit on all
payments; 3 kinds of payments: direct, countercyclical, and LDP.
And you need to include all of them, and that's what the $250,000
cap does.
Back to Darin.
QUESTION: Senator, Iowa's kind of been the butt of some jokes
lately getting $1.8 million, I believe, to study ways to reduce the
effects of hog manure smell here in the state of Iowa. In your mind,
why or why not is this needed?
GRASSLEY: Well, I voted against that particular earmark. I
don't want to say it's not needed, but I've -- I've taken a view that
some of these earmarks aren't needed at least right now or there's
other ways of financing them. And there's already a lot of money
being spent by Iowa State University and through the pork producers
themselves to study this.
And Iowa State did not know anything about this, so I don't know
whether it was really an earmark or not because it didn't say that it
was going to Iowa State. But Iowa State's involved in this.
I don't oppose such studies going on, but I didn't think that
this additional money was needed.
Back to Darin -- or no, Eric. I'm sorry.
QUESTION: Senator, we have our -- first new round of flood
recovery this year -- this week. And I'm wondering if you could talk
a little bit about how you view the...
GRASSLEY: You got cut out.
QUESTION: Sorry. I was wondering about how you view the federal
government's continuing role in dealing with flood recovery here in
Iowa.
GRASSLEY: Yes. Well, if this is too short of an answer, let me
know and I'll fill it in.
I consider the federal government and insurer of last resort.
And I think it's been that way for at least 30 or 40 or maybe 50 years
and maybe even before then. I don't know.
But when there's natural disasters that you can't insure for --
and I know we have flood insurance, but that doesn't mean everybody's
going to get it or it's going to take care of all their needs.
Anyway, we need to fill in where insurance doesn't fill in. And we've
been doing that for years and years. And we're going to supply the
money that it takes to get people back to whole. It's not going to
help people more than whole, and in some instances, it might not even
make them whole.
But our intention is to work in that direction, and we're still
helping Katrina after four years, and we'll probably be helping parts
of Iowa still for another four years.
But there's still $24 billion appropriated in October and only a
small part of that's actually spent yet.
Back to Eric -- or whoever. I forgot who I'm calling on.
QUESTION: All right. Senator, Senator Obama and the Obama
administration has put a goal of getting going on comprehensive health
care reform here in the nation. With the economic conditions, is that
a realistic thing to do right now? Or is it something that you
probably shouldn't put on the government's plate knowing what else is
going on right now?
GRASSLEY: I think we have to work on it because it's a terrible
problem out there. I think it's a case of emphasis. Right now, the
emphasis of the administration should be on our economic recession and
the recovery. But it doesn't mean we can't be working on other things
at the same time.
Maybe it's impossible for one president to work on more than one
thing at one time, but in the Congress, we've got so many different
committees that we -- we're going to be able to find time to work on
it.
Thank you, Darin and Eric, participating in today's public
affairs program. This has been Senator Chuck Grassley reporting to
the people of Iowa.
Thank you, both, very much.