Grassley fields questions at Newton’s Vernon Company

Employees at the Newton’s Vernon Company got an inside track on what’s happening in Washington this week, U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley paid the business a visit on Wednesday. The senator meet with employees and fielded questions about a variety of issues.

Chris Vernon, president and chief operating executive of the Vernon Company, said he was surprised when members of Grassley’s staff reached out to him about hosting the visit, but he said he’s glad to have the senator visit his Newton headquarters. Employees had a chance to bring their own questions for the senator and Vernon said he gave his staff free rein to ask Grassley whatever was on their minds.

“We’re not really politically engaged as a company, that’s kind of deliberate,” Vernon said. “But we wanted to give our employees a chance to let people in Congress know how they feel.”

Grassley told the audience Wednesday that he was back in Iowa to visit with constituents, an opportunity he likes to take advantage of whenever Congress isn’t in session. He’s proud to say that he hasn’t missed a vote since 1993, but he tries to get back to Iowa as often as he can to meet with Iowans.

Other than face to face visits, the senator told employees from the Vernon Company the easiest way to stay in contact with him was through email, although he said they shouldn’t expect to receive a timely response, Grassley estimated he still has about 10,000 emails to read through.

“I always like to encourage communication like we’re about to do now, because you can tell what I’m thinking, and I can tell what you’re thinking,” Grassley said.

The 84-year-old Senator handles some of his social media accounts, but staffers in his office post to Facebook for him.

“I do my own Twitters and Instagram but I don’t do the Facebook,” Grassley said. “Twitter can be very personal, but it’s also kind of discouraging. If you read the responses to what I tweet 90 percent of those people hate me.”

The audience questioned Grassley on a number of issues, including the situation in North Korea, the ongoing Mueller investigation, as well as local issues. Here’s a sampling of Grassley’s comments.

Progress on a new farm bill and CRP land:

The house put out a partisan bill, but I don’t think they can get it through the house because the Democrats in the house won’t vote for it, and I think there’s probably 20 Republicans who won’t vote for it. The bill is directed towards helping southern farmers instead of Midwestern farmers. They’re going to be able to get support above the cost of the production for their products.

We’ve got at least 22 million acres that can be in CRP now, but there’s something very wrong with the formula because the government is paying more than landlords can get for cash rent. We’ve got to get that formula down so the government is coming in under what farmers can get from cash rent. With the high rent the federal government is paying there’s plenty of incentive to put the land in CRP. We should be targeting the land we want to put in that’s the most environmentally fragile.

Possible Supreme Court Retirements:

If there’s going to be a retirement, it needs to come in the next 60 days. If there’s going to be a retirement I think it would come from a member appointed by Reagan who’s thinking about retirement.

Mueller Investigation:

I don’t think the president is going to fire him, I think it would be stupid if he did, he’s going to cause more harm than good. After a year when there’s no evidence of collusion, why don’t you just let it play out. And I’ve told the President, he talks too much. He’s not going to be an effective President. If the House becomes Democrat after the November elections I think they’ll vote to impeach him, but I don’t think the Senate will convict him. But his Presidency is going to end after the November elections even though he has two years left because he’s not going to be able to be an effective President.

Contact David Dolmage at 641-792-3121 ext. 6532 or ddolmage@newtondailynews.com