Iowa’s longtime Senator Chuck Grassley (R) finished his 34th year of visiting all 99 counties in Iowa with a town hall meeting last Wednesday afternoon at the Greene County Community Center in Jefferson. “I still sometimes, with all this effort to get out to see people, I sometimes read letters to the editor, ‘You’ve lost touch, Grassley’,” he said at the outset of the meeting.
About 50 people attended the informal meeting, during which Grassley intentionally steered clear of partisan politics. Late in the meeting, after answering questions on a wide range of topics, he was asked about the escalating situation created by ISIS in Iraq. Grassley understood that part of the question came from recent information from the intelligence community that President Obama had been briefed daily about ISIS for a year, but said he has no strategy. The President later talked about making ISIS a “manageable problem. “ “This is not a political meeting, and I don’t want to give a political answer,” Grassley said.
About the Environmental Protection Agency’s attempt to regulate waterways on farmland, Grassley said, “I think it’s a power grab and it’s going to make farming very difficult.” He said the EPA has too much power, and he spoke of a bill that has passed the House that would reduce the ability of regulatory agencies to overstep their bounds. The bill would require both houses of Congress to approve rules before they go into effect. He said Senate Majority leader Harry Reid has refused to put the bill on the Senate floor.
Grassley listened attentively to the parents of a former soldier who alleged that military supplies in Iraq were given to the enemy. He was stifled while he was still on active duty. After he left the military, his parents say, he forwarded further proof of his allegations to military investigators. He was subsequently arrested on criminal charges. Grassley listened carefully, asked questions, and accepted an envelope of information. It was a very personal exchange in a public forum.
Grassley also heard a story from a local resident alleging he was treated unfairly by the military when marital problems resulted in a bogus criminal charge against him. Grassley talked of his office staff’s oversight efforts and the importance of whistleblowers, saying he thinks whistleblowers are among the most patriotic people anywhere.
On a question of immigration, Grassley said he voted against an immigration bill the previous week because it failed to secure the border. He said he had voted for an immigration bill in 1986 that he thought would secure the border, and it didn’t. “I wasn’t going to make that same mistake twice,” he said.
He reminded people that between 800,000 and 1 million people come to the country legally every year. “We are a very inviting nation for people who come here under our laws, legally, to be immigrants. We are a nation of immigrants, and I think we ought to feel good about our country, that people want to come here,” he said. “That’s also why a lot of people come here undocumented. It’s a good place to go if you want to move up the economic ladder.”
He said the best way to deal with the problem of undocumented immigration is to secure the border first, either by completing a physical fence, or by using a virtual fence with drones and electronic surveillance.
Toward the end of the meeting Grassley was asked “Given your insight, where do you think we’re going to be as a country five years from now?”
His answer was both optimistic and Republican. “I’ve got to give you a historical answer, and you might feel I’m naïve by saying it. Our country, both internationally and domestically, is not in good shape, but I think if you look at the 230-year history of our country, we ‘ve gone through tougher things than we’re going through right now, and I think we’re going to be in good shape… From the standpoint of government, and the relationship to the economy and to the people, it’s different than most countries from this standpoint, that we have a very limited government compared to other countries, so the free market system, and how we’ve developed as a country, and the individual initiative we have, as long as the government doesn’t screw up and get in the way, we solve a lot of our own problems.”
There were no questions or comments about education, Social Security, or the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).
