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IowaPolitics.com: Grassley looking for "weeks" of Senate debate on health care reform
11/13/2009

By Andrew Duffelmeyer
IowaPolitics.com

WAUKEE -- U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley told a Dallas County GOP fundraiser on Thursday that Senate Republicans intend to keep health care reform up for debate in the Senate for at least a month.
 
“We can do that unless 60 Democrats decide to stick together. Then we can’t do anything,” said Grassley, a New Hartford Republican. “But as long as there’s some split there, we intend to keep this debate going for a few weeks to give you the opportunity to do what you almost did in the case of the stimulus bill.”
 
Grassley said in the case of the stimulus bill 5,200 people called his office, 83 percent of which opposed the plan. If that kind of grassroots effort happens with the Senate health care bill, Grassley said, it could slow the bill down enough for Senate Democrats to “get it done right.”
 
“You’re restructuring one-sixth of the economy,” Grassley said. “Health care, just the words; life or death issues for 306 million Americans. It ought to be taken pretty seriously. And when most of the program doesn’t get started until 2013, what’s the hurry of getting to get it done right now instead of getting it done right?”
 
Grassley made his comments at the 34th annual Dallas County Republican Fall Harvest Steak Fry and Pie Auction, which drew about 150 people to Waukee High School Thursday evening. The event cost $25 per person or $150 for a table of eight, and raised nearly $3,000.
 
U.S. Rep. Tom Latham, R-Ames, said at the fundraiser that Iowans need Grassley in the U.S. Senate – not Roxanne Conlin, the Des Moines lawyer that announced her run this week.
 
“We don’t need a trial lawyer who is going to finance her own campaign, I can assure you,” Latham said.
 
Latham said people have been critical of Grassley for his role in the bipartisan health care negotiations that broke down, but that the senior senator “did the right thing.”
 
“Senator Grassley stayed at the table, and when they finally had to go their leftward way he left, and stood on principal and did the right thing,” Latham said. “But he was trying to move Harry Reid and all those folks in the Senate over to what everyone understands would be a very common sense of addressing the health care problems we have in this country.”
 
Latham also said people are scared of the direction President Barack Obama has taken the country in, saying “the agenda is just way off from what people expected last year.”
 
“The government is out of control when you have all of these czars running the private enterprise in this country, taking over industries in the private sector,” Latham said. “This is what is not American. It simply is not what this country is made up of, about, it is not what we should be doing for the future of this country.”

State Auditor David Vaudt focused on state issues in his address to the crowd, saying the recent AFSCME agreement with the state has some positive points – it will save money through five furlough days, “spreading the pain” while avoiding layoffs – but it also could handcuff the state if revenues continue to fall.
 
“The Revenue Estimating Conference will be meeting again in December, and if they decide the revenue projection has to decline, what that agreement does is it takes about 80 to 85 percent of state employees off the table for layoffs,” Vaudt said. “It’s going to make it much more difficult if we would actually see another decline in revenue versus where we’re at.”
 
Vaudt also said it’s “really interesting to listen to the governor lately” in regard to the financial situation the state finds itself in.
 
“It was like there was no way anyone could perceive this fiscal challenge that we’re facing,” Vaudt said. “My question back to the governor is where have you been living the last three years? My goodness, I’ve been sounding the alarm for three years about our spending gaps and the problems creating.”
 
Republican Party of Iowa Chairman Matt Strawn and WHO-AM radio talk show host Jan Mickelson also spoke at the fundraiser.


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