The Iowa Standard participated in Sen. Chuck Grassley’s Capitol Hill Report on Monday. We asked Sen. Grassley what, if anything, Republicans can do to limit the spending of the Biden Administration and Democrat-led Congress.
“Well, we’re pretty dependent on the Democrats you just mentioned – their names happen to be (Joe) Manchin and (Kyrsten) Sinema. We’re counting on them to use their pressure to limit it very dramatically from $1.9 trillion to some figure they won’t say, and I wouldn’t have any reason of guessing what it is, but somewhere between $600 billion that 10 Republicans have put together that they think would be necessary. I wouldn’t disagree with $600 billion. But for the $1.9 trillion, even former Secretary of Treasury Larry Summers. That goes back to the Clinton Administration, but he’s a Harvard professor, former president of Harvard University, an outstanding economist. He has written of the threats of overheating the economy in a dramatic increase in inflation and speaking against the need for $1.9 trillion because there’s so much from the previous $4 trillion that we appropriated that isn’t spent yet, plus what we have put out there has been put in personal savings that once this economy heats up, all of that is going to find its way into the economy and we don’t need another $1.9 trillion.”
Grassley said he will continue to work to protect against wasting taxpayer money, “as I always have.”
“My vote against this reconciliation at 5:30 in the morning on Friday – we Republicans have expressed our view and we hope that when the final – when you shoot with real bullets because the reconciliation package we passed is not policy – it’s just an outline for about six or seven committees to put together this $1.9 trillion got put together real money to be spent. We’re just hoping that Manchin and Sinema hold their ground and get this into a reasonable figure.”
