For Immediate Release
January 29, 2009

  

     MODERATOR:  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 Jim Turbes with

KWBG Radio in Boone and Gordon Wolf with the Denison Bulletin-Review

in Denison.

 

     The first question will be from Jim Turbes.

 

     TURBES:  Well, Senator Grassley, obviously, economic stimulus is

the hot topic this week going around Washington.  Your Finance

Committee met on earlier in the week.

 

     You talked about three things:  being timely, temporary and

targeted.  You felt this package wasn't meeting those guidelines.

Could you explain a little more?

 

     GRASSLEY:  Temporary would be the biggest problem I have.  The

extent to which you want to spend X number of dollars in this terrible

recession we're in to get the -- get the economy turned around, and it

can be done in that two-year period of time, with a judgment that it's

actually creating jobs, I'm very willing to consider that.

 

     But we've got a lot of money in here that I would call a gravy

train, where a stimulus bill is being used in a subterfuge manner to

-- to get more spending done that's going to go on well beyond two

years.

 

     Just to give you an example, there's money in here for Head

Start.  I think Head Start's a good program.  I don't think we're

serving enough kids.  But there -- they want to serve 55,000 more kids

in this stimulus package.  That will create some teaching jobs, yes,

but do you think, at the end of two years, that they're going to fire

those teachers and not serve those kids?  No.

 

     But where they're going to get the money, I don't know, because

we can't continue to be passing trillion-dollar, $800 billion or

trillion-dollars bailout packages and stimulus packages all the time

without hyperinflation.

 

     So if they want -- if they want to put more money into Head Start

and 55,000 more kids and all the teachers that go with it, then that

ought to be done through the regular appropriation process, not

through the subterfuge of a stimulus bill.  And there's lots of that.

 

     OK, next question.

 

     WOLF:  Yes, Gordon Wolf from the Denison Bulletin-Review.

Senator, is anything being done on the federal level to coordinate the

stimulus package with the states?  Right now, Iowa, for example, is

doing a lot of bills pertaining to rebuilding Iowa.  And would some of

this be duplicate?

 

     GRASSLEY:  The answer to that is probably on highways, no.  In

some other areas, the answer might be yes, but I'm not sure I can give

you an example of the latter.

     But in the case of highways, Iowa is getting less gas tax money

than what they anticipated, so there are some highways they aren't

building.  So then there's a lot of engineered projects on the shelf

that can be taken off, and this money comes in, and I think they can

start building highways that wouldn't be built today.  Maybe they'd be

built five years from now, but build them now, and probably create

some jobs in -- that we would create some jobs in the -- in the

process as an example.

 

     TURBES:  Senator, I know we're getting to that time of the year

when people are starting to look at their taxes.  Would -- is some of

this involving some tax relief?  I know there are some tax benefits

that have been talked about in there.  Again, there's a ways to go on

this, it looks like.

 

     GRASSLEY:  Well, based upon payroll taxes, but actually coming

out of reducing withholding over a period of five or six months each

of the next two years, there would be up to $500 per person and $1,000

per married couple to get less withholding, which means that they

would have more money to spend based on the proposition that -- that

consumers make up 70 percent of our -- of our economy.

 

     Then there's also a lesser amount of money, but still a

significant amount of money to encourage some investment that is the

best way to create jobs and to stimulate the economy.  Change tax

policy so people will then spend and invest and then thus, by

expanding your business, creating jobs, hiring more people, and those

are long-term jobs.  Those aren't temporary jobs, like I explained for

the stimulus spending.

 

     And examples of that would be enhanced depreciation, allowing to

write off in one year more things that you'd spread out and

depreciation over a longer period of time.  It would include a lot of

changes in energy incentives, solar, wind, try to get those industries

moving very quickly, as an example.

 

 

     WOLF:  Yes, Gordon Wolf again.  Senator, has anything been done

to track what was done with the economic stimulus given to the

financial institutions?  And in light of that, are you wary of the new

stimulus package?

 

     GRASSLEY:  I am wary of the new stimulus package, but it ought to

be seen as a little more direct approach to getting out of the

recession than liquefying banks.  There's plenty of oversight in

place.  It hasn't cranked up fully. 

 

     And one of the areas where I just introduced legislation

yesterday with Senator Baucus, a bipartisan bill, was to allow the

Government Accountability Office access to direct bank documents.

Under present law, they have access to anything that the Treasury has,

but Treasury -- and Treasury has to cooperate with them, but they

don't have -- that's indirect access to the banks, and we may not get

-- the Treasury may not push for it.

 

     So we want the Government Accountability Office to go in there

and oversee and see if that money is being wisely used. 

 

     TURBES:  With the -- the economy the way it's been -- and, of

course, we saw the numbers coming out already today -- Ford, big loss,

the higher numbers again on unemployment -- you all along had told

people to be -- be cautious and, again, to remain calm, not to panic

in this.

 

     Are you pretty comfortable with the way things are moving?  I

mean, it seems real hectic to us, following all the news on the

stimulus packages and things like that in Washington.  But are -- are

you pretty comfortable with the way things are moving ahead?

 

     GRASSLEY:  The process is moving ahead OK.  If you're going to --

you've got to be timely, as I said.  So from that standpoint, it's

moving along OK. 

 

     But here's where I'm very disappointed.  President Obama, running

on a platform of more bipartisanship, this bill is totally partisan.

We were -- Republicans, either in the Appropriations Committee or my

Finance Committee, didn't see the bill until, you know, 24 hours

before. 

 

     And it's a massive piece of legislation.  And we kind of

anticipated some things, so we weren't totally caught in the dark.

 

     But let me tell you what bipartisanship is and how Senator Baucus

and I on the Finance Committee did it the six years I was chairman and

the last two years that he was chairman, and he's chairman again now.

Bipartisanship means that you sit down, the two of us and our staff --

sometimes there's other senators involved -- and work out a compromise

piece of legislation, so when the bill is put before the committee,

it'd be a Grassley-Baucus bill, when I was chairman, or it would be a

Baucus-Grassley bill when he was chairman.

 

     And then we would decide to stick together through other people's

amendments.  And probably at that point, we would feel we'd have 60 or

70 members of the Senate with us, so you were fighting off a few

people on the fringe right and the fringe left.

 

     And then you'd end up with the same way through the Senate,

through the House, and conference, and to the president.  And this is

being handled not that way, so this is very partisan.

 

     WOLF:  Senator, changing gears here and talking about the

National Science Foundation and those that were surfing porn on the

Internet, in my business, if we did that, that would be grounds for

immediate dismissals.  What has happened to those people accused...

 

     GRASSLEY:  Well, the one outstanding example of a guy that spent

20 percent of his time over a two-year period of time at the cost of

$58,000 to the taxpayers either quit or was fired.  He's no longer

there.  But I'm not going to be satisfied with that, so I'm asking for

more documents. 

 

     But you're right.  Corporate America would not put up with that.

And we shouldn't be putting up with it in the federal.

 

     In fact, there ought to be more reason not to put up with it,

because we're dealing with the taxpayers' money.  It doesn't show that

we're being very good trustees of the money.

 

     MODERATOR:  Thank you, Jim and Gordon, for participating in

today's public affairs program.  This has been Senator Chuck Grassley

reporting to the people of Iowa.

 

     GRASSLEY:  Thanks to all of you.