Grassley gets an earful
U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley’s town hall meeting at Montgomery County Memorial Hospital in Red Oak Friday covered a lot more than just the healthcare debate.
Grassley made his stop during the August Senate recess, as part of his annual 99-county tour of Iowa. Grassley told the assembled crowd he was hoping to make the process of representative government work a little better, and boost communication between himself and his constituents.
Grassley’s first question regarded grievances against President Donald Trump, and accusations over Trump’s temperament and threats over North Korea. Grassley was asked what he would do to address the issue and prevent potential nuclear conflict with North Korea.
“The president, under our Constitution, if he decides to do something in the Middle East or abroad, and our military is put in harm’s way, I have to make sure that I have all, or partial power of the purse to make sure they have what they need to get the job done. I would caution and advise any president that military action should always be a last resort. There should always be diplomacy, sanctions, and coordination with the United Nations in a multi-national approach to any problem. China has 90 percent of trade with North Korea, and whatever has been done diplomatically with China is paying off,” Grassley advised.
Grassley was pressed on Trump’s transparency on the goals of his military action. Grassley felt Trump was clear.
“He spoke about it in his recent speech. He was more thorough than any Bush or Obama presidency. He didn’t just say we’re going to send in more troops. He said we were going to put pressure on Pakistan to not harbor terrorists that cross the border for a safe haven, and he is getting India involved, because India can put pressure on Pakistan, which will in turn put pressure on Afghanistan. I think he’s made it very clear he’s sending in more troops to train Afghans to run their country,” said Grassley.
Grassley was also asked about public education funding, and whether or not funding was going to be lost for public education from the current administration. Grassley said most of what comes up in a presidential budget mak have a small impact on what congress does, but not a big impact.
“I believe in the area of education, it would be less. The federal government has a very narrow involvement in public education throughout the 50 states. In Iowa, it’s about 5.5 percent. 94.5 percent comes from either property taxes or school aid. From that standpoint, even if there were dramatic cuts federally, it would have a small impact in Iowa. I’m not on the appropriations committee, but I don’t expect a lot of change,” Grassley commented.
Grassley also weighed in on plans to work on healthcare reform, and the impact of providing insurance coverage to 72,000 Iowans unable to buy health insurance.
“We’re working to get Wellmark back into the market, if CMS will approve what they have submitted earlier. This process has been going on the past three months, and a decision needs to be made this week in order to get it in place for 2018. Infrastructure will be the next focus,” Grassley said.
And while saying the people have gotten the opinion that Congress has been painted as unproductive, and not accomplishing what they needed do in the first eight months, Grassley said every congressional official believes they’re doing the people’s business, however big or small.
“There’s controversy, and you legitimately have a feeling nothing is being done, but remember, journalism thrives on controversy. If you get the opinion nothing gets done, let me assure you, at least from my committee, last year 31 bills got out of my committee, they were all bi-partisan bills and 18 made their way to the president,” advised Grassley.
Constituents also pushed for Grassley to have the healthcare debate studied deeply and in bipartisan fashion, rather than behind closed doors for a brief time.