Senator Grassley Answers Questions from Keota Students

KEOTA – Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley visited Keota High School on March 26 and answered questions from Keota 7-12 graders. Grassley noted at the start of his visit that most people who go to his town halls are older than fifty and called it a good opportunity to know what’s on the minds of young people.

One student asked if the United States should keep funding foreign wars. “There’s a lot of places where there’s conflict in the world, and there’s some that don’t, in any way, involve the United States,” said Grassley.

Grassley stated that the United States should only get involved with wars if it is in our national security interest. He stated that he would be interested in wars to defend other NATO countries, as well as Japan or South Korea. He claimed that China is becoming a competitor of the United States and could become an enemy in the future.

A student asked Grassley how today’s political discourse today compares to when he started. “It’s much worse now than it was...You kind of get the idea that Republicans never talked to Democrats and vice versa, but that’s not true,” said Grassley. “Just think of the United States Senate, as an example. You’ve got to have 60 votes to stop debate, otherwise, you’ll never get to finality on a bill. So when you have 51 Democrats and 49 Republicans, if you don’t have some bipartisanship, nothing gets done. Maybe not enough gets done, but things do eventually get done...You always hear the negative things, the fighting is going on in Congress. You get the opinion that nobody ever cooperates or gets together in a bipartisan way, and for a second time, I’ll say that it’s not true...So it’s bad, but not as bad as people think it is.”

A student asked what Grassley had done to help education. Grassley stated that he mostly worked with higher education, but had helped start the Talented and Gifted program to ensure gifted students are challenged. Grassley stated that Pell Grants, a federal grant program designed to help low income students receive higher education, should be given out for trade schools. Grassley claimed the problem with college prices is students not knowing how much college costs and stated he was working on a standard form for universities listing off price, so students can compare and get their money’s worth. He stated he was also working on getting rid of the federal requirement for universities to tell students the maximum they are allowed to borrow in student loans, which he claimed causes students to borrow too much and needlessly.

A student asked about term limits for government employees and “bureaucrats.” Grassley, who is currently in the middle of his eighth consecutive term, stated that he had voted for congressional term limits in the past, but that doing so would require a constitutional amendment. Grassley then stated “If you term limit members of Congress, then they aren’t going to be around and have the institutional knowledge that it takes to keep the bureaucrats under control...When you don’t have a strong Congress, you’re going to enhance the power of bureaucrats, because almost every bill you set up in Congress not only sets up a policy, but it doesn’t give the details of the policy. And that’s done by regulation, by the executive branch. All supposedly within what the law allows. And then, if they have a lifetime job, you can see how much smarter (bureaucrats) will be to get around Congress than they ought to have...If you’re going to limit the terms of members of Congress, then you oughta put term limits on bureaucrats, so they accumulate so much power.”

Grassley was asked what he had done for farmers. He brought up the farm bill. “A farm bill doesn’t guarantee farmers profit, but it does protect farmers against natural disasters…It’s just to kind of give some certainty to the work you do, because every year you put all of your labor on the line, you put all your capital on the line, all your management on the line, and maybe at the end of the year, you don’t get anything,” said Grassley.

The senator explained that war and embargos increase input costs and can leave farmers unable to pay bills. Grassley accused both presidential candidates of being unwilling to do trade negotiations and of supporting tariffs, which he thinks are the opposite of helping farmers. He stated that, if the United States puts tariffs on China, the country will put retaliatory tariffs on grain and hurt farmers. Grassley also brought up his support for estate tax exemptions, which he argued allow farmers to pass farms from one generation to the next without paying heavy taxes.

A student asked about fracking. Grassley stated that he had always been an advocate for alternative energy. He stated that, thirty years ago, when there were concerns about American oil wells running dry, he promoted solar and wind energy. “I’m the father of the wind tax credit. If you like wind, you like me, if you don’t like wind, you don’t,” said the Senator. He said the promotion of alternative energy ended up being a good thing, due to global warming.

Grassley was asked by a student about President Joe Biden’s immigration policies, which the student described as “open borders.” Grassley stated that America is not anti-immigrant, but that people cannot enter without the government’s permission. Grassley claimed Biden had undone Trump’s immigration policies and, without saying so in words, invited people to break the law and illegally immigrate. Grassley stated that the president needs to finish the wall on the southern border.

A student asked about the 2021 withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan. Grassley called it poorly done. He brought up the recent terrorist attack on a music venue in Krasnogorsk, Russia, where 140 people were killed by an Afghanistan-based affiliate of the Islamic State. “Maybe I’m saying that we should still have troops there...I’m not sure I should go that far right now,” said Grassley. “But there’s still bad things happening, because there’s a safe haven for terrorists in Afghanistan.” Grassley stated the CIA had warned Russian President Vladimir Putin about the attack in advance and that Putin had accused the U.S. of spreading disinformation.

A student asked if people should be allowed to own assault rifles. Grassley called it a constitutional right and said they were the most popular type of rifle available. Grassley claimed that most school shootings were carried out by people with mental health problems, who would not be allowed to legally own firearms if their mental problems were dealt with. He brought up a program that trains Secret Service agents to recognize threats and stated he would like the program to be extended to teachers.

Grassley was asked what the most important bill he sponsored was. He again brought up the wind energy tax credit, which made 60% of Iowa energy wind. Grassley also stated that he led the team that created Medicare Part D, which helps with prescription drug costs.

After the students were dismissed, a News-Review reporter asked Grassley about the ongoing war in Gaza. Decades long conflict over control of the region heated up in October of last year, when Hamas, the military group that has controlled Gaza since 2006, launched an attack on Israel, killing 767 civilians and 376 Israeli soldiers. This inspired a full-scale invasion of Gaza that has killed more than 32,000 people, including more than 13,000 children and 9,000 women, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. The Israeli government has claimed 13,000-19,500 civilian casualties in Gaza and more than 13,000 Hamas casualties. On March 19, American Secretary of State Anthony Blinken reported that 100% of Gaza is facing severe levels of acute food insecurity, with famine looming. The night before Grassley’s Keota visit, the United Nations Security Council ordered a ceasefire in Gaza. The United States, who holds veto power over the Security Council, notably abstained from this vote.

“When people come to my office and they want a ceasefire and they are deploring the number of civilians that are being killed, I speak to them this way. I said, you know, none of this would be happening if Gazans hadn’t invaded Israel,” Grassley said. “And Israel has a right to defend itself, and I think their goal is to eliminate Hamas, and that’s a worthy goal, considering all the damage they’ve done, not only to the people they killed in Israel, but also how they were running their country, and spending all this money on military and tunnels and not serving their people properly.”

Grassley was asked bluntly what level of civilian casualties he found acceptable. “I wouldn’t want to say a single one is acceptable, but the loss of innocent death is the result of war sometimes,” said Grassley. “And I think you have to look back to World War II. If Roosevelt hadn’t decided to win that war and have the collateral damage that came from killing innocent Germans, we would have never won the war.”

Grassley was also asked about the House of Representatives’s recent vote to demand ByteDance, the owners of the social media app TikTok, sell the app to an American company or be shut down, citing security concerns over the fact that ByteDance is a Chinese company. Grassley stated that he was leaning yes for the Senate vote, but would not make a decision until the bill got out of the Commerce Committee. Grassley claimed that he did not want to ban TikTok and that Americans would still have access to the app. He claimed that the bill was designed to stop compromises of national security.