Matt Stoller found this shameful tidbit in the Congressional Record from last Friday. The speaker is Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, who is mad that some senators want to find budget cuts to offset disaster aid for Iowa:

So I don’t want anybody telling me that we have to offset a disaster relief package for the Midwest where people are hurting, when we didn’t do it for New Orleans. Why the double standard? Is it because people aren’t on rooftops complaining for helicopters to rescue them, and you see it on television too much? We aren’t doing that in Iowa. We are trying to help ourselves in Iowa. We have a can-do attitude. It doesn’t show up on television like it did in New Orleans for 2 months.

Open Left commenter SpitBall raises an excellent point–a better question is “why federal aid to the flood victims in Iowa should require a budgetary offset, when the invasion [and] occupation of Iraq does not.”

But getting back to Grassley’s comment, it disturbs me that he would denigrate the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Can’t he just praise Iowans without portraying us as better than those no-good complainers in New Orleans?

And suppose the Iowa floods had left thousands of people trapped in their homes, unable to escape on foot or by vehicle. Is he saying Iowans would not stand on their roofs hoping to be rescued? Would we build our own rafts, or what?

The Iowa flooding this summer was unprecedented, but we didn’t have whole neighborhoods of people stranded without food or water the way New Orleans did the first couple of days after Katrina hit.

The unspoken contrast in Grassley’s comment is that (white) Iowans are better people than (black) Katrina victims.

Right-wing blowhard Rush Limbaugh started pushing this meme right away last month. Iowa conservative blogger Emily Geiger picked up the talking point from Rush or some other radio host and ran with it:

Iowans can fix most things ourselves. It’s just a matter of who is going to pay for it all after the fact. This isn’t like New Orleans, where (I heard some relief worker on the radio the other day say that) out-of-state volunteers had to wake up residents at 10 a.m. so that the volunteers could get inside the houses where the residents then sat around and watched the volunteers work.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: when the going gets tough, count on Republicans to make people feel better by reinforcing their racist stereotypes.

Meanwhile, Democratic Representatives Bruce Braley, Dave Loebsack and Leonard Boswell did something constructive on Thursday. They jointly wrote to Steve Preston, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, asking for the immediate release of $30 million in Community Development Block Grants to Iowa.

The full text of their letter to the HUD secretary, along with a joint press release explaining some background, is after the jump.

If you thought the deteriorating relations between Senator Chuck Grassley and evangelical Christians were just kabuki theater designed to make Grassley look more moderate than he is, maybe you should think again:

Evangelical Christians in Iowa, dominant in the state’s Republican Party, have denied Sen. Charles E. Grassley his request for a place on the state’s delegation to this summer’s Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn.

Mr. Grassley may attend the party’s Sept. 1-4 nominating convention in St. Paul, but not as a voting delegate.

With a majority of nine out of 17 members on the Iowa Republican central committee, religious conservatives made Iowa Christian Alliance President Steve Scheffler chairman of Iowa’s 40-member delegation in a vote immediately after their state party convention July 12.[…]

Mr. Grassley had said “yes” when asked by Iowa Republican Chairman Stewart Iverson if he wanted to be a voting delegate to the national convention, Mr. Iverson said.

Political observers in Iowa saw the move against Mr. Grassley as retribution for his having tangled with evangelical pastors in his state. He initiated a Senate Finance Committee investigation of six televangelists for conspicuous personal spending.

“That had nothing to with it at all,” Mr. Scheffler said Sunday. He said Mr. Grassley and the other members of the Iowa congressional delegation already had national convention floor privileges – meaning they could walk the floor but not vote.

Grassley’s office refused to comment when contacted by the Washington Times regarding this story. Staffers quoted in the Des Moines Register today downplayed the significance of what happened:

Beth Pellett Levine, Grassley’s press secretary, said Grassley won’t be a delegate, but he will attend the convention and will have floor access as a federal elected official.

She said Grassley, as well as Iowa’s two Republican congressmen, Reps. Steve King and Tom Latham, will not be delegates “in order to give additional Iowa Republicans the opportunity to participate in the floor proceedings and activities of the national party convention.”

Levine said that Grassley told state party leaders he would be a voting delegate if they wanted, “like he has previously, but the more Iowa Republicans who participate in the event the better, in his view.”

James Carstensen, a spokesman for Latham, said the congressman “never requested to be a voting delegate so as to allow more party activists to participate in the convention.” Aides to King, similarly, said he didn’t want to take a spot away from other delegates.

Columnist Robert Novak wrote on Saturday that “evangelicals and their allies” dominating the state convention in Iowa earlier this month “dumped their critic,” Grassley.

I don’t know how much this is retribution for Grassley’s investigation of the televangelists and how much is just Christian conservatives flexing their muscles after their power grab at the Iowa GOP state convention earlier this month.

Either way, it seems like quite a snub to a five-term U.S. senator, who has held a voting delegate slot at previous national Republican conventions.

The Republican Party doesn’t have superdelegates, so members of Congress do not automatically become voting delegates to the national convention. But you would think the party central committee would show some respect to the Republicans in Iowa’s Congressional delegation.

I don’t think anyone would mistake me for a big fan of Representative Leonard Boswell, but I’d never support denying him a vote at the Democratic national convention in Denver.

That said, I can’t say I’m too unhappy to see Iowa Republican leaders antagonizing Grassley. Maybe he will get irritated enough to retire rather than seek re-election in 2010. After all, Democrats seem poised to pick up at least four seats in the U.S. Senate this November, and perhaps as many as eight or nine.

In case anyone cares, I’ve put the full list of GOP delegates to the national convention after the jump. The two Republican elected statewide officials, Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey and Auditor David Vaudt, are delegates, as is Polk County Republican chairman and blogger Ted Sporer.

On Tuesday the House overrode George Bush’s veto of a bill that stopped planned cuts in the Medicare reimbursement rate for doctors. It’s the fourth time Congress has voted to override Bush’s vetoes. This is the bill that just barely cleared the Senate because of Ted Kennedy’s return.

This diary by noweasels has the story and links to the roll-call votes, along with a lot of comments about how this law will affect people. TomP has some background on Medicare and how it was adopted.

The House vote was 383-41. In the Iowa delegation, Bruce Braley, Dave Loebsack and Tom Latham voted yes on the override. Steve King voted no. Leonard Boswell was among the 11 representatives who missed the vote.

The Senate vote was 70-26, with Tom Harkin voting yes and Chuck Grassley voting no. Barack Obama and John McCain were among the four senators who missed the vote.

Senator Chuck Grassley is considering how to proceed with an investigation of six televangelists who may be abusing their tax-free status. The Des Moines Register gives some background:

In November 2007, Grassley did the right thing when he sent six “media-based ministries” a letter asking them about everything from executive compensation to the list of vehicles purchased or leased. He wondered, for example, why a tax-exempt organization – which the public subsidizes by paying more taxes because that organization doesn’t pay any – was purchasing a $23,000 commode.

Just like his many other investigations of tax-exempt organizations, Grassley operates under the proper assumption that all charitable organizations enjoying preferential tax status should have to earn that status and be accountable to the public.

The questioning of the televangelists was “nothing more than a nonprofit tax review,” Grassley has said.

Most of the ministries have cooperated. But one – Kenneth Copeland Ministries – has been especially arrogant. Copeland has refused to respond to questions about compensation and publicly said he would not cooperate.

The Register’s editorial board wants Grassley to issue subpoenas, which could lead to contempt charges, to demonstrate that Copeland can’t get away with stonewalling a Senate investigation.

In May, Copeland launched a website attacking Grassley for “religious McCarthyism.” If you’re curious, click over to the Believers Stand United site, and explore the various hit pieces on Grassley and the man who may have given Grassley information about the ministries under investigation.

Will Grassley issue a subpoena against the uncooperative preacher who may go to jail rather than testify before his committee?

I am curious to see how far this clash will escalate. It’s not the kind of thing that would threaten Grassley’s career, but it can’t be pleasant to have popular evangelicals trash your reputation. I don’t listen to Christian talk radio–anyone know how much play this story is getting?

In other news, Grassley was annoyed with Senate Democrats for rejecting what he thought was a deal on the Medicare bill passed last week:

He said that Republicans and Democrats put together a bipartisan agreement and had been “working together for months until the Democratic leadership pulled the rug right out from under that effort” and made the vote partisan. Democrats engaged in an “unconscionable effort to scare seniors and providers,” Grassley said.

Even more painfully for Grassley, Finance Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., publicly denied in CQ Today having reached a deal with Grassley earlier.

Grassley and Baucus work closely together. If the Democrats pick up four or five seats in the Senate, perhaps Baucus will become less willing to compromise with Grassley. Then maybe Iowa’s senior senator will decide he doesn’t need the hassle of serving another six years in the minority. Maybe retiring in 2010 would be better than facing defeat after defeat in a Democratic-controlled Congress.

Grassley’s seat is safe as long as he wants it, but this becomes a strong pickup opportunity for Democrats if Grassley retires.

Then again, maybe the flattering coverage he gets for token efforts to reduce waste are enough gratification to keep Grassley in his current job forever. Case in point: the Register noted that Grassley has written a letter to the president

to complain there are too many government-owned SUVs and big sedans that sit around Washington idling while waiting for their passengers.

“Some of the biggest culprits of this practice are vehicles attending to Cabinet secretaries, deputy secretaries and assistant secretaries,” Grassley wrote Bush on Thursday.

With gasoline prices rising, Grassley said that when he walks out and sees the vehicles, “it just looks to me like the federal government is out of touch,” when it should be leading the way.

That article goes on to say that Grassley never allows his staff to let a car idle while waiting for him. It’s the kind of publicity he loves, highlighting what a modest, common-sense guy he is.

Look, it’s nice not to waste gas by idling, but it would be nicer to have more fuel-efficient vehicles on our roads.

Unfortunately, Grassley has stood with failed Republican policies on energy policy for many years and has repeatedly opposed higher mileage requirements for cars and trucks.

Also, it would be nice for government officials not to waste taxpayer money by letting cars idle, but it would be nicer not to keep spending hundreds of billions of dollars in Iraq while we are running up massive debt.

Unfortunately, Grassley votes for every Republican tax cut package and every blank check to fund the Iraq War.

He’s far from the worst in the Republican Senate caucus, but I would sure like to see him get fed up enough to retire in two years.

To everyone who worked hard toward the passage of a law expanding health insurance coverage for Iowa children, which Chet Culver signed yesterday.

To the Iowa Council for International Understanding, which has posted translations of Iowa voter registration documents on its website in light of a court ruling that bars the Secretary of State’s office from providing information in any language other than English.

To Senator Chuck Grassley for looking into the spending practices of six tax-exempt “media-based ministries,” despite a large-scale public relations campaign accusing him of “religious McCarthyism.”

To Iowa Independent blogger Dien Judge, who was just appointed to the Monroe County board of supervisors, a position he will hold for the next six months.

And to Iowa City Council member Ross Wilburn, the bicyclist who won Johnson County’s annual Bike-to-Work Week Bike-Bus-Car race.

Put up a comment if you know of someone else who deserves congratulations this week.

Yet again, Republicans are trying to sneak an amendment benefiting oil companies into otherwise good legislation. This time they are trying to use the Flood Insurance Bill as a vehicle to open up the last portions of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for drilling.

This action alert went out on the Sierra Club e-mail list today:

This is an urgent alert: As soon as tomorrow (Tuesday), the Senate will vote on an amendment to the national Flood Insurance Bill offered by Senator Mitch McConnell (KY) and co-sponsored by Senator Pete Domenici (NM) that threatens polar bears and other wildlife.

Rather than addressing high oil prices and dependence on foreign oil by moving toward better alternatives and practical solutions, this amendment promotes more drilling in more places for more oil profits.

This is not a solution, it’s a sell off. Please take action right now…

1. Make the call. Either today or tomorrow morning, please call your Senators at one of the numbers below:

   * Tom Harkin – (202) 224-3254 or (515) 284-4574 – http://harkin.senate.gov/c/

   * Charles Grassley – (202) 224-3744 or (515) 288-1145 – http://grassley.senate.gov/pub…

If you are calling after 5:00 PM or before 8:00 AM Eastern time, please be sure to leave a message.

The rest of the action alert is after the jump. It includes more information and talking points for you to use when you make the call.

I wanted to draw your attention to a little known house race that I believe has massive implications for the future of our state. 

According to this Iowa Independent article, 23 year old Hillary staffer and newly minted Wartburg graduate Cayla Baresel is running for Iowa House District 17, currently held by Sen. Grassley's grandson, Pat Grassley (more on him later).

I don't wish to plagarize from the Iowa Independent article, but it represents virtually the only press her campaign has gotten to date, and so I will quote just a few paragraphs. I strongly encourage everyone to read the full article.

Having grown up in a single-parent household in Iowa, Baresel says the issues she feels most deeply about are education and health care. Those are followed closely by concerns for the economy and a need for more biofuels technology and environmental issues.

“It was a challenge for my mother, but she did an excellent job [raising my sister and me] and working two jobs most of the time,” Baresel said. “Higher education can sometimes feel as if it is out of reach. It's expensive now and it gets more and more expensive every year. I also know there are people in this district who can't afford health care premiums so they do without insurance. We've got to create more opportunities. We've got to give young Iowans a reason to remain in our state. Those are big concerns not only for the individuals in those situations, but for the district as a whole.”

When the election is said and done, Baresel says she wants the voices and needs of the people to be the driving force in Des Moines.

“I've had the opportunity to hear the stories of the people in Butler and Bremer counties. I've heard what's important to them,” she said. “I know I would represent them and this area well. I know I would be a good representative because I would always represent the people.”

Can the same be said about her opponent, political legacy Pat Grassley?

Pat Grassley was elected to House District 17 in 2006 at the age of 23 (his grandfather was elected to the same district at the age of 24), having inherited longtime Republican Bill Dix's seat in an uncontested primary–the first of many benefits of the Grassley name. 

According to the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board, in the 2006 election cycle (2005/2006), Pat Grassley raised and spent over $100,000–an unheard of sum for a non-leadership, rural, first-time candidate in a Republican leaning district. His opponent, 22 year old Alek Wipperman, raised and spent less than $15,000…meaning he was out spent more than five to one.

More disconcerting still, are the source of some of those contributions. According to the IEC and this article by the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier, Grassley recieved thousands of dollars of big name, politically connected PAC contributions including:

• $5000 from Sen. Mitch McConnell's Bluegrass Committee PAC
• $2000 from Fmr. Sen. Bill Frist's VOLPAC
• $2000 from Sen. Chuck Hagel's Sandhills PAC
• $1500 from Sen. Lindsay Graham's Fund for Americas' Future PAC
• $1000 from Sen. Max Baucus' Glacier PAC
• $1000 from Fmr. NY Gov. George Pataki's 21st Century Freedom PAC
• $1000 from the Republican Issues Campaign (RICPAC)

By the end of 2005, Grassley had racked up more than $13,000…meaning that Grassley raised and spent more money from PAC's alone than our challenger raised and spent total.

If that doesn't chill the blood, listen to this quote from Grassley himself in the fore mentioned article from the W-CF Courier.

“My grandpa and I talked, and I said I'd take any money that was legal and with no strings attached,” Pat says. “If people didn't feel confident in me, they wouldn't just sign a check over to me and be linked to me.”

In short, Grassley is the pinnacle of the new generation of big-money Washington conservatives in Iowa, and we need to put up a strong campaign against him now, or face the consequences in the future. We need to send a message that, in Iowa, people rise on their merits–not their political connections.

Don't be fooled: somewhere in the halls of power, a political path is being charted for the younger Grassley. There's no telling where that path lies, but be certain that it runs through the House, Senate or Terrace Hill. As the old doctor's adage goes, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”, and every ounce of effort put into defeating Pat Grassley now will pay off in spades later.

I urge everyone to look into Ms. Baresel once she gets her campaign up and running, and seriously consider contributing. This is one race we can't afford to write off.

A few days ago, Des Moines Register reporter Jane Norman wrote a story about earmarks Iowa’s members of Congress obtained for projects in 2007. The article was based on the 2008 “Congressional Pig Book,” published by Citizens against Government Waste.

The Register notes:

Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonprofit, nonpartisan group that takes aim at waste and fraud in government.

To qualify as pork, projects must meet one of seven criteria: a request by just one member of Congress; no specific authorization; no competitive award; no presidential request; a greatly increased budget amount compared with the previous year; serving only a local or special interest; or no congressional hearing.

Norman’s main point was that Iowa’s members of Congress obtained far more earmarks in 2007 than they had the previous year, totaling

$184.6 million in earmarks, or $61.79 in Iowa pork for every man, woman and child in the state.

It’s a major rebound for Iowa, which languished in 37th place in a similar study in 2006. That year, lawmakers obtained $72.2 million in earmarks, or $24.34 per Iowan.

(Note: Earlier this year, the group Taxpayers for Common Sense did its own analysis and came up with somewhat different numbers for 2007: the Iowa delegation was calculated to have obtained about “$152 million in earmarked money from Congress – or $51.10 for every man, woman and child in the state.”)

Norman noted that since Democrats took control of Congress in he 2006 elections, Senator Tom Harkin now chairs a “key appropriations subcommittee.” The “Congressional Pig Book” apparently singled him out for getting “$40 million for 44 projects in his own bill,” according to Norman.

I don’t know why the authors would single out Harkin, when their own book shows that Senator Chuck Grassley obtained more pork for Iowa in terms of total dollar value. Grassley collaborated with Harkin on a large number of earmarks for Iowa projects.

I also get a little tired of self-appointed taxpayer watchdogs expressing righteous indignation about this or that project that got a few hundred thousand dollars from the federal government. The Pig Book shows that the more than 11,000 earmarks in 2007 accounted for about $17.2 billion in federal spending.

Meanwhile, the U.S. spent several times that amount on the continuing war in Iraq in 2007, with little to show for it besides more American casualties.

That said, there’s no doubt that a lot of earmarks are wasteful appropriations for projects of limited benefit to the broader community. The Pig Book contains a ton of information about the earmarks each member of Congress has obtained. You can search all the Iowa earmarks from 2007 on this page of the Des Moines Register’s website, or search for earmarks by any member of Congress at the Citizens Against Government Waste site.

I used that search engine to find the total number of earmarks that each Iowa member of Congress obtained last year. The total dollar amount for each member comes from a table published in the Des Moines Register on April 3 (no link, because I could only find this table in the print version). Note that not every dollar earmarked by an Iowan ends up in Iowa, because some of these projects operate in many states.

Chuck Grassley (R), 155 earmarks, $321.4 million

Tom Harkin (D), 194 earmarks, $302.8 million

Tom Latham (R, IA-04), 63 earmarks, $67 million

Dave Loebsack (D, IA-02), 27 earmarks, $53.5 million

Leonard Boswell (D, IA-03), 27 earmarks, $33.1 million

Bruce Braley (D, IA-01), 26 earmarks, $27.5 million

Steve King (R, IA-05), 13 earmarks, $9.8 million

Why does Latham, a Republican, lead our House delegation in terms of earmarks? He is the longest-serving Iowan in the House (having been first elected in 1994) and serves on several subcommittees of the House Appropriations Committee. Also, his district includes Iowa State University, and a lot of federal funding goes to major research universities.

The data for the Democrats surprised me. How did the freshman Dave Loebsack secure so much more than Leonard Boswell? At first I thought it must be because Loebsack’s district includes the University of Iowa, but only two of Loebsack’s 27 earmarks were for the university.

Looking down the list more carefully, I realized that the dollar amount credited to Loebsack is inflated because he was one of 13 House members to earmark $24 million for the Department of Education’s National Writing Project. Most of that money will not go to Iowa.

Even if we remove that one from Loebsack’s list, he is still left with 26 earmarks (almost as many as Boswell), totaling $29.5 million (almost as much as Boswell). Keep in mind that Loebsack is only halfway through his first term, while Boswell was elected to Congress in 1996.

Braley is not far behind, despite being a freshman as well.

It’s no surprise that King is at the bottom of the list. Not only is he a Republican in a Democratic-controlled chamber, his idea of constituent service seems to revolve around making outrageous statements. Oh, and also suing to prevent non-native English speakers from receiving voter information in other languages. He has no major universities in his district either.

If you dig around in the database and find anything particularly noteworthy, please put a comment in this thread.

The Center for Responsive Politics has ranked the U.S. House and Senate members in terms of their net worth, based on disclosure documents filed in 2007. Jane Norman has the highlights in the Des Moines Register.

Tom Harkin, Chuck Grassley, and Tom Latham are the only members of Congress from Iowa who disclosed a net worth greater than $1 million. Click the link for more details.

I am no fan of Chuck Grassley, but I agree with these comments by the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee:

Grassley said today that he has told his staff members to look into the details of a sweeping arrangement in which the Federal Reserve will help guarantee the obligations of Bear Stearns with a $30 billion credit line.

Bear Stearns will be bought by J.P. Morgan Chase at a price considered by some analysts to be far less than its market value. The company has 14,000 employees.

“I want to understand what the downside risk for the taxpayer is and any upside potential,” Grassley said in a statement issued through his Senate office.

He said he also wants to know more about how insiders such as senior executives fare when such deals are made.

“Corporate bigwigs shouldn’t be able to profit from a deal while employees, shareholders and creditors have to carry the burden of a company’s demise,” Grassley said.

Here’s hoping the Democrats who control that Senate committee will make sure a thorough review is conducted.

I am not a regular on any of the economist blogs, but check out bonddad’s diary history for background on the Bear Stearns debacle.

While most of us are focused on insurance or universal care, the Bush Administration has been incrementally shredding Iowa’s existing public health safety net in ways that have yet to become apparent.  The most recent assault on our public health care infrastructure is escaping the notice of mainstream media and citizen journalists alike, probably because it is not easily explained. I am referring to a proposed set of arcane regulation changes by the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) which, if enacted, will result in $15 billion dollars in cuts over five years to service providers, closing or scaling back emergency rooms, medical education and school based services in Iowa communities.

As I’ve written, the so-called “economic stimulus” bill is a charade that won’t really help the economy.

However, I give full credit to Chuck Grassley for working hard to get good provisions on renewable energy incentives and green jobs into the version that passed the Senate Finance Committee today. A Sierra Club press release notes:

The $5.5 billion package includes short-term extensions of key renewable energy tax incentives due to expire at the end of 2008–including the Production Tax Credit (PTC), Investment Tax Credit (ITC) for solar, clean energy bonds, and other measures designed to promote energy efficiency.

I’m putting the full text of the Sierra Club’s statement after the jump. It includes examples of how “green jobs” have improved local economies.

Grassley has disappointed environmentalists many times, but today he came through and significantly improved the bill that’s going to the Senate floor.

Way back before Tom Harkin was elected to the Senate, Iowa had two Republican senators: Roger Jepsen and Chuck Grassley. We used to call them “Tweedle Dumb” and “Tweedle Dumber.”

For those of you too young to remember, Tweedle Dumb lost to Harkin despite the massive Reagan landslide of 1984. His campaign faltered when it became public knowledge that he had frequented “massage parlors.” Why did it become public knowledge? Because Tweedle Dumb used his personal credit card to pay for the massage parlor services.

But I digress.

It's easy to forget Chuck Grassley was ever known as Tweedle Dumber, but I remembered when I saw this piece in the Des Moines Register:

Grassley: Ethanol plants should use coal

Responding to worries that the ethanol boom will drive up the price of natural gas used to power the ethanol plants, Grassley had a brilliant idea:

“We’ve got to use things that we have in greater supply. We need to use more coal in place of natural gas,” Grassley said Tuesday.

Noneed4thneed comments that using coal to produce ethanol negates any environmental benefit from the renewable fuel. If you're not reducing greenhouse gases, then the only benefit of ethanol is that it helps Iowa farmers. He wonders, “Why limit the benefits?”

Well, maybe Grassley has no concern for the environment and no interest in reducing greenhouse gases. Instead, his ingenious plan would please the corporate interests that profit from coal as well as the corporate interests that stand to profit from ethanol.

Or maybe Tweedle Dumber really does care about the environment and is too dim to understand why it makes no sense to use coal in ethanol production. 

Senator Grassley, do everyone a favor and retire. Maybe you can get an ethanol-powered riding mower to demonstratively mow your own lawn with.