SEN. GRASSLEY HOLDS A NEWS TELECONFERENCE
GRASSLEY: Taxpayers are being asked for quite a bit right now.
And with all the money going out the door for bailout or TARP or
whatever you want to call it, and in the last week, stimulus package.
And then there's the housing rescue package. It's as important as
ever that we in the federal government be accountable to the taxpayers and transparent about the money spent.
And it's my job to make sure the federal government is
accountable. That's what you call congressional oversight. This
week, I'm putting an extra focus on legislation and initiatives to
help the federal government be more accountable to the American
taxpayers.
So, yesterday, I introduced legislation to clarify my 1986 update
of the False Claims Act. That bill allows individual citizen
whistleblowers to bring cases, with or without the government's help, against anybody who defrauded the taxpayers. This is necessary because of some recent federal court decisions that threaten and limit the scope and applicability of our bill as intended by Congress.
The law has recovered $22 billion for U.S. Treasury that would
have otherwise been lost to fraud. So I think it's proved its
usefulness. So, today, in addition, I'm introducing legislation to
apply whistleblower protections to the legislative branch of
government.
The bill would protect employees of Congress from retaliation for
closing information about the violation of a law, rule, or regulation.
Whistleblowers in the executive branch have helped me do my job of oversight, and congressional whistleblowers could be as effective. I'm ready for questions, and I'm going to start with Kerry.
And for the rest of you, Kerry hosted me in her studio last week,
and I was glad to visit there.
Kerry, go ahead.
QUESTION: Always a pleasure to see you in person, Senator.
A general question. Just your overall impression of the
president's speech last night and then, more specifically, is it
realistic to think that we can cut the deficit in half by 2013?
GRASSLEY: If the recession is over in two years and we have
rapid economic growth, yes, I think it can be but just barely.
Now, understand when I say it can be cut in half, if Republicans
were giving -- if a Republican president were giving a speech with
this terrific deficit we have, annual deficit in the budget, and said
cut it in half and it's still going to be a trillion dollars, everybody would be laughing. And I think the press would be making fun of it. And I'll bet you that doesn't happen for this president.
But, anyway, I thought it was a terrific speech. Obviously, he's
a political genius. He's an orator. I don't know whether he's a
policy genius or not. Time will tell. And I guess for the good of
the country, I hope he is.
One thing I would highlight in it -- and I'll bet it's one of the
few things he brought up that's not going to cost one single penny,
but it will help us get more for our tax dollars than anything else
that he had in his program or anything else we can do. And that's
that every dollar of education -- and that may be billions of dollars
at the federal level. But in Iowa, don't forget, 95 percent of every
education dollar comes from the state or from local property tax.
And whether it's that 95 percent or the 5 percent that comes from the federal government, nothing's going to get us more for our
education dollars than what he said about education. And if he
continues to use the bully pulpit to remind parents that education
starts at home, that parents can influence the use of education
dollars by encouraging their kids to be in school, to graduate from
school, to do homework, to shut off the TV, to go to parent-teacher's meetings, to volunteer at the schools. Just to let your kids know that you're interested in their education, that'll do more good than anything else. And he's on that kick.
And I hope he stays on that kick because he's going to help, not
only minorities in this country, but he's going to help the entire 100
percent of the population. And it's going to have benefits just
beyond helping one person.
GRASSLEY: It's going to have benefits for reduction of poverty
because single parenting and lack of education are the two main
components of poverty. He's going to enhance our educational
competitiveness as he has as a goal to have the highest percentage of any population anywhere in the world that have finished college.
The extent to which we emphasize math and science, it's going to have a great deal to do with the competitiveness of our business and industry in the international arena and help everybody economically and save taxpayers dollars in the process.
So I complement him on his stand on education.
Tom Beaumont?
QUESTION: Senator, have you been asked to participate in the
White House health care meeting or summit that's being planned for
next week? And if not, do you hope to be?
GRASSLEY: I haven't been. I expect to be. But if it's a
situation like last week, you know, we were given 48 hours notice, so I wasn't able to cancel all the things that I had planned for Monday
afternoon.
And talking to my colleagues, I don't think I missed out on a
whole lot. But, anyway, I was invited because I'm ranking member of the Finance Committee. So the same position will involve me with this health care conference. And I hope I'm able to go, but I'm going to have to wait -- such a short notice is what my schedule is because, you understand, afternoon meetings is when I have constituent appointments.
Monday through Thursday, reserve from 3 to 5 for eight 15-minute appointments with any constituent or constituent group that comes out or sometimes by telephone with my constituents.
So it's pretty important for me to keep those appointments. Not
that I don't cancel because, you know, on the stimulus bill, I had to
be on the floor a lot. My staff had to take a lot of these meetings.
I don't want to say that I'm 100 percent meeting every one of them,
but I'll bet I do it on a 90 percent basis.
QUESTION: If you are able to attend, what would you hope to
bring up or stress in that discussion?
GRASSLEY: I think exactly the same thing that Senator Baucus
would; that we shoot for a large majority of the Senate. And to do
that, it's got to be bipartisan. And the extent to which, you know,
I'm concerned about rural health care and everything of that nature.
But beyond that parochial interest, I think just bipartisanship.
QUESTION: Thank you.
GRASSLEY: Mike Myers?
QUESTION: Senator, can you hear me?
GRASSLEY: Yes.
QUESTION: There is another major spending bill that you alluded
-- omnibus -- coming down here for 2009 still. I'm just kind of
fishing here. But what is in there for Iowa? Is there something in
there that you're concerned about? What's your take on it, please?
GRASSLEY: Well, I believe there's going to be a lot in there for
Iowa. But I'm not sure that I'm in a position to give you run downs
on it.
QUESTION: OK.
GRASSLEY: But don't forget, Senator Harkin and I submit a lot of
earmarks for consideration. And there's going -- there's going to be
a lot of earmarks in there for Iowa projects.
But most of the extent to which Iowa benefits from national
programs -- it's the funding of all programs as far as I know except
for defense and veterans. I believe -- I believe it's only defense
and veterans that's -- homeland security. We've also funded that. So we had three separate appropriation bills that have been funded for the full 12 months.
But continuing resolution takes us through five months. And now
we have seven months of this.
Now, I could -- I could relate your question to what Kerry asked
about. Because Kerry asked about can you cut the deficit in half...
QUESTION: Yes. I was going to ask you about the size of this.
GRASSLEY: Yes. Well, I'm not sure I can give you the bottom
line. But you've got to remember it's an 8 percent increase. And
you've got to remember that over the past four years, Bush has just
about frozen these programs. Very little increase, maybe a percent or two increase.
So an 8 percent increase, getting back to Kerry, I think if he
really wants to cut the deficit in half by the end of four years, he's
making the same mistake with this 8 percent increase that Bush did.
When he came in in 2001 for the first two or three years, he
dramatically increased some discretionary funding, particularly, for
education and just made it more difficult to cut back when he finally
decided in 2005 that he need today cut back to domestic expenditures to go the budget deficit down.
So I don't think that we're going to be able to stop an 8 percent
increase, Mike Myers, but he's just making it more difficult to reach
his goal of cutting the deficit in half because, you know, if you
start on day one with that attitude -- now, maybe I ought to give him credit, but I don't know the fiscal impact of this.
He says it takes time, but he's going to go through the budget
and eliminate any unjustified program. Now, if he's aggressively
doing that, then maybe he overcomes this 8 percent increase. But just on the surface, an 8 percent increase, when you have inflation that's practically zero, it's not really justified.
And I think the only reason it's being done is because liberal
groups represented by -- or that are backing up Democratic
congressmen, they want to make up for the three years that Bush
basically froze these same programs.
QUESTION: Thank you.
GRASSLEY: Let's see. The next one would be Jim Boyd.
QUESTION: I think you just covered it, Senator. Thank you.
GRASSLEY: OK. Mary Rae Bragg?
QUESTION: Senator, regarding education. There's been talk in
the Iowa legislature of increasing the age that students in Iowa
schools would have to reach before they could leave school -- high
school. And opponents say that that's not fair to the teachers who
would just then be warehousing kids who didn't want to be there.
Since you've said what you have about the importance of
education, how would you feel about that proposal here in Iowa?
GRASSLEY: I very seldom make comment, but I will in this case,
on issues before the Iowa legislature. But if I were a member of the
Iowa legislature, I would vote for it. And I don't buy the argument
of warehousing kids because if kids -- I know we have a tradition of
mainstreaming kids, but don't forget, at least in the larger cities,
we have what you call alternative schools. And we try to keep those
kids in school.
GRASSLEY: And maybe in New Hartford, Iowa, it's a problem for
some teachers. But in the larger cities of our state, it shouldn't be
a problem with alternative education. And, you know, for the same
reason the president said that we ought to have the highest percentage of college graduates of any society, and he's encouraging paying for the first year of higher education by having people volunteer, the rationale for doing that in the year 2010 is we've just got a more complicated world and you've got to have more education if you're going to succeed.
So when my dad was growing up having an eighth grade education was enough. But when I was growing up, a high school education maybe was enough to get by. But now, a high school education isn't enough. And if you don't have a high school education, you're even in a worse position.
Everybody's got to look at education as an investment. On
average, just a little bit more education will enhance your quality of
life and your standard of living. And we need to do everything we
can.
And then you get back to what you heard me say complementing the president about his stand on parental involvement in education. If the state of Iowa doesn't consider a high school education an
important aspect for society as a whole, how would you expect the
parent of the drop-out to consider that education is important?
And so this is a public policy saying to the parent we think
education is important. And then we've got the president of the
United States saying that parental involvement is very important.
It's all these things and a lot of others that are going to save our
society from the higher education -- or let's put it this way -- the
higher level of attainment of individuals in other educational systems in our competitive countries around the world if we're going to be competitive.
Tim Rohwer?
QUESTION: Yes, Senator.
I received this from Representative Steve King's office in
response to last night's speech. He had some concerns about big
government. I know that.
One of the things he mentioned, though, that he thought would
help grow the private sector was enacting the fair tax -- a national
sales tax. And I know he's talked about that with me several times.
Has he ever approached you on this? And any thoughts on that?
GRASSLEY: Yes, I have thoughts on it. I would say a national
sales tax -- well, first of all, I'd start with the premise. We need
to simplify our tax system. A national sales tax would be the second approach I would use if I couldn't get the first done.
The first would be to have a flat rate income tax. Now, the
difference between my position on the flat rate income tax and the
national sales tax is based upon our federal system of government
which also has a federal system of taxation.
States rely more on sales tax than they do income tax to raise
money. And I think that, by the federal government having a national sales tax of $0.23, it would preempt a big source of revenue for states.
Now, it wouldn't do away with state sales tax, but you add $0.23
to Iowa's $0.07, you add 30 percent. It's pretty regressive. But
there's also a great deal of economic good comes from a national sales tax. And that is the marketplace making decisions instead of
political leaders making decisions. But, also, I think you can use
the same arguments in support of a flat rate income tax.
Jane Norman?
QUESTION: Senator, I see you're going to have a hearing today on scoring health care reform options for the Congressional Budget
Office. What do you hope to get out of that?
GRASSLEY: Well, I think the motive behind it, as far as the
Democrat leadership is concerned, is they remember 1994 when the
Congressional Budget Office scored even premiums under the Hillary
care plan as -- because they were mandated by the federal government as taxation.
And so it was one giant tax increase. I think the goal of the
Democrats is to kind of intimidate the Congressional Budget Office not to follow that precedent. But it's also an effort to find out if CBO is geared up to handle our massive amount of estimates that are going to have to come out there as we enter health care reform construction of a bill and components of it continuing from about April the 1st right through the end of June.
And we want to make sure they're geared up for it. But it also
is an effort now, on my part, I want to make sure -- all I'm
interested in doing is two things. Make sure that there's no
political interference in CBO's judgment as I don't think there's
political interference. But I don't want the -- how would you say it
-- the drive -- and I'm part of that drive to get health care reform
-- to intimidate the Congressional Budget Office that they ought to
change their ways of doing things just because we have a complicated issue coming up.
And then, secondly, something that the Congressional Budget
Office doesn't do -- and I think they ought to do -- and this might be a way of saying, well, I'm compromising with the Democrats to some extent on this business of maybe getting CBO a little more pliable.
But I think in the case of CBO and the joint tax committee that
too much of their decision making and arriving at a figure is inside
their office, not inside the Beltway -- inside their office and not
subject to outside exposure and criticism and analysis.
GRASSLEY: And I want both joint tax and CBO to talk to people on the outside or maybe I should say it this way. Not for them to
necessarily take the initiative to talk to people on the outside and
say how do you react to how we passed this cost or the tax savings
that would come if you reduce taxes. But anybody in the outside that wants to see their intellectual basis and the paper and the statistics and the figures and the studies they use to arrive at it, I think that they ought to be more open to that sort of challenge or just other people asking questions about how did you arrive at this and how did you arrive at that because I think you get too much inbreeding within these two institutions and they ought to be subject to actually satisfying the intellect on the outside that they're right.
They don't have to change. I wouldn't say they have to change,
but they ought to justify their positions. And, in a sense, I'm not
sure they even have to justify them to members of Congress.
For one, I wouldn't be smart enough to, you know, look at a
figure and say have you thought of, have you thought of that. But
there are economists and tax people and experts in a lot of areas that can do that. And they ought to be subject to that sort of challenge. And that's what I want to promote but not just on health care, on everything.
QUESTION: Do you want to see some sort of formal process for
that?
GRASSLEY: No. I wouldn't want it to be formal. I just want
them to be open to it, quite frankly. They might say otherwise, but I think, as a matter of practice, they don't encourage that. They
discourage it. And I don't want why.
Well, why? Because in this town, knowledge is power. You know?
QUESTION: If I could ask one more thing on...
GRASSLEY: Yes. Sure.
QUESTION: Are you concerned there's not yet a nominee at HHS,
that this is slowing the process or is Congress proceeding anyway?
GRASSLEY: Oh, we're going to proceed anyway. But I would
suggest that Tom Daschle not being secretary of HHS has slowed down the process on health care reform. But on the other hand, I think Senator Baucus and I -- it was our intention to be very independent anyway and move ahead in our own speed and with our own product.
But I think it does make a difference. Now, let me ask you a
question in return. The only name I've heard regularly is Governor
Sibelius. Well, now my staff says she's out. So I guess I withdraw
my question to you, Jane.
John Skipper?
OK. I've gone through the entire list. Anybody have a follow
up? OK. Thank you all very much.
END