For Immediate Release
December 31, 2008

 

The Following is an unrehearsed interview with Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, speaking to you live from his farm in New Hartford. Participating in today's public affairs program is Greg Slotsky with KCHE Radio in Cherokee.

 

     SLOTSKY:  OK, well, Senator Grassley, first of all, appreciate you taking the time to join us.  Happy new year to you.  Hope you had a great Christmas.

 

     Talk a little bit about your thoughts on the difficulty of President Bush's presidency over the past eight years with 9/11, obviously, the situation in Iraq, gas prices.  Probably has to rank as one of the more difficult presidencies, wouldn't you say?

 

     GRASSLEY:  Very, very difficult.  And I think maybe something that the president said to me early on in his first term -- he said something along this lines, that he was surprised, every morning you wake up there's a crisis.  And I suppose that crisis really started with 9/11.

 

     And I think one of the high points of his administration that probably won't be recognized for another 20 years is the fact that we never had another terrorist attack on U.S. soil under his two-term administration.

 

     And that's quite a (inaudible) of accomplishment from the standpoint that we could probably list 10 to 20 attempts that the FBI was on top of and the CIA was on top of, or cooperation from our other allies helping us, that we were on top of it to stop attacks within the continental United States of America.

 

      GRASSLEY:  And so the president was able to not have us attacked anymore.

 

     And then, of course, we had quite a downturn during the recession that started in the year 2000 when NASDAQ lost 50 percent of its value.  And then 9/11 happened.  We went into a short recession.  But because of his ability to foresee that tax cuts would be helpful, the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 kept our economy going very, very strongly. 

 

     Now as we are in the end of his eight years, we look back and we see one shortcoming.  And I don't know whether you can blame just President Bush for this or whether or not a lot of people in the private sector were taking advantage of situations, but we have a bubble bursting in housing, and we look back and we see the subprime problem that brought us to a credit crunch that we're in now, and the recession that's resulting from it.

 

     But, overall, I think today people would give him a very low -- very low marks.  But, I think, maybe, 20 years from now, it'll be a little like Nixon or Hoover.  After you look back, you see that they really accomplished something.

 

     Or, you know, during the more recent presidency of Reagan, you look back and -- when he ended his eight years, it looked like a disaster.  But now he looks like a real prophet from the standpoint that he and the pope brought down communism and ended the Cold War. 

 

      GRASSLEY:  But we didn't see that in 1988.  We probably didn't see it until 10 years later.  But when he died, he died being considered a very successful president. 

 

     And I think it'll work out very well for Bush.  Maybe not as well as it did for Reagan, but it'll work out pretty good.

 

     SLOTSKY:  Senator Grassley, what are your thoughts on the current low gas prices, and where do you see things going from here?

 

     GRASSLEY:  Well, I think they're going to go up.  God only made so much petroleum or fossil fuels.  And then there's a big push by environmentalists not to use so much of us.  And the extent with which we can replace it with renewables, that's perfectly legitimate. 

 

     But we're still going to be dependent on fossil fuels for several decades and when there's -- when there's less of it, I think you'd expect the price to go up.

 

     Now, I do think there's plenty of things we can do in the United States to help ourselves, and that is more drilling.  And I hope that we are able to break through on some drillings off shore and in the continental United States, and be able to bring supply online and then continue our wind, biodiesel, biomass, ethanol, et cetera, as renewables.

 

     I'm proponents of all these.  I'm the father of the wind energy tax credit.  So I think -- I found that piece of legislation being very, very successful, and we just push ahead.

 

     But I think we have to expect the price of gasoline to go up. And probably, if it wasn't for $4 gas and people driving less, it would still be up there.

 

     Of course, the recession has put people -- a lot of things that people would normally do on hold, and, consequently, that has something to do with the price coming down, as well.

 

      GRASSLEY:  But I never thought I'd see this low price.  Probably gas is cheaper today at $1.59 -- at least that's what it is in Cedar Falls, $1.59 -- than it was when I was going to college and I was paying 29 cents a gallon for gas.

 

     SLOTSKY:  Senator Grassley, talk a little bit about what's going on, maybe, with the Senate, maybe somewhat in Congress, as well, as far as preparing for the presidential change.

 

     GRASSLEY:  Well, the transition's been going on before the election took place, regardless of whether McCain won or Obama won. They were all involved in transition.  And a year ago, President Bush announced a transition team to help whoever was going to be his successor.  So it's -- I think it's going pretty smoothly.

 

     As far as the Congress of the United States is concerned, you know, the planning for the inauguration itself is done by the Committee on Rules of the Senate.  And under Senator Feinstein's leadership, those things are pretty much boilerplate, and we'll just move ahead as they normally would.

 

     For the Senate, as a whole, between now and January the 20th, we're going to be involved in two things:  trying to get as much of President Obama's -- President-elect Obama's Cabinet approved as we can so they can be sworn in on January 20th and immediately get to work.

 

     And to some extent, they're already working -- the extent to which, you know, they're in place.  And he's asking them to get started ahead of time.  But they can't take any official action until they're sworn in.  And so we have to approve them between now and January the 20th. 

 

     And then the other thing will be to work on a stimulus package, because Obama would like to be able sign, as his first bill, a stimulus package.

 

     SLOTSKY:  OK.

 

     Senator Grassley, I guess, one more question for you, and then that is basically all I have.  But what about your thoughts on the current situation in Iraq and, maybe with the new president, where do you see things going from here?

 

      GRASSLEY:  Well, I think you see things going from Iraq to Afghanistan.  Because even before the election -- maybe even before he announced for the presidency almost two years ago -- Obama said that he was -- that he thought Iraq was a mistake and that we ought to be doing more in Afghanistan.

 

     Now, he has seemed to adopt the president (ph) plan of pull out our troops in Alaska -- I mean, in Iraq over a period of now -- between now and 2011, and let that stand.  But as we pull troops out, and that's -- we're in the process of doing that right now -- there might be some troops even getting ready to go right now to bring down the numbers of troops that are there.  And then we -- so we bring some troops home.  We move some more troops to Afghanistan.

 

     So I think, effectively, with the new Obama presidency, it's pretty much up to the government of Iraq what happens in Iraq from now on with our being supportive of them and having a transition period for them to make sure that they have proper control.

 

     SLOTSKY:  OK, well, I guess one other thought came to my mind, too.  This, obviously, New Year's Eve.  If you wouldn't mind -- you have the floor -- take the time to maybe wish everyone in Iowa and all of the Americans a good 2009 and a happy new year, please.

 

     GRASSLEY:  Well, happy new year to everybody, as we celebrate 2009 coming into our timetable.

 

     We thank God for the freedoms that we have in this country and do whatever we can to protect them; and, hopefully, work together to work ourselves out of the recession and get back to work, and have prosperity once again.

 

     SLOTSKY:  Senator, thank you very much.

 

Thank you Greg for participating in today's public affairs program. This has been Senator Chuck Grassley reporting to the people of Iowa.