Grassley out to convince people that Dems and Repubs are not all that different

• And not in a good way
• Grassley to appear at Scott County Republican event Tuesday, noon, The Outing Club 2109 Brady St., Davenport — he should be held to the fire
• Of note: Grassley voted with Graham for the same atrocity censured in SC  South Carolina county GOP censures Sen. Lindsey Graham after he voted for $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill

• Senator Grassley, thirty Republicans opposed the 1.2 bill including Joni Ernst — how are they not as enlightened as you?
• We suspect they are just as interested in bringing home the bacon, but not by hazarding the country and its citizens’ financial well-being 
• Senator Grassley, with all due respect,  what we expect is that you stand athwart the Great Reset, at all times and everywhere, not facilitate it out of a sense of “bipartisanship” and “regular order”

Conservative dismay with Chuck Grassley over his vote in support of the Biden trillion dollar plus largely non-infrastructure “Infrastructure Bill” along with the usual suspect Republicans, accommodationists and facilitators of Democrats worst deigns, is wide and deep. And for what Senator!? To say you are bipartisan??? . . . for some questionable silver for Iowa and honest needs that can be had in other ways?

Senator Grassley,  Republicans did not nominate you to be bi-partisan in the Democrats’ evil pursuit of the Great Reset. Thirty, the great majority, of the Republican Caucus in the Senate including our own Senator Ernst did not agree with your accommodationist analysis as they saw egregious expense and tremendous dangers in what the parliamentary process portends. That the level of spending was the result of as you say “regular order” in committee is no comfort especially when the sum of the parts is outrageous and so much of it is a coordinated assault on America’s advantages and traditions while hamstringing its citizens with inefficiencies, less freedoms and more and more debt service.

Planning, pilot projects and implementation of some very bad things are intertwined in the bill which parliamentarily was a stalking horse to advance three times more costly companion legislation that a mere majority vote in the Senate passes (explained in links set forth below). Does/did  opposing the larger entitlement bill make you feel better having helped enable it?

Supposedly our nation’s debt ceiling must be increased to accommodate this outrageous spending.   The debt ceiling is no substantial backstop with such spinelessness in Washington. As the result of government action, your action, these bills engender an inflation tax increase on ordinary citizens as the printing presses roll out the dollar bills to accommodate the inevitable debt increase that you will expand, in the spirit of bipartisanship or something.

Below are links to informed mainstream conservative commentaries challenging such profligacy and hazarding of the country.  After those we have embedded a forward we received of a response from Senator Grassley to a constituents expressed concerns.  Our annotations are interspersed in red. This is a different letter than we previously commented on.

No, the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill is not ‘paid for.’ The American people will be paying for it for years to come.

The Anti-White Infrastructure Bill.

Here Are The 19 Senate Republicans Who Voted For The Infrastructure Legislation.

Trump calls Dems’ $3.5T spending bill an ‘assault’ on the ‘American dream’: ‘Time to wake up!”

Republicans who voted for $1.2 trillion ‘infrastructure’ bill got played.

Democrats Projected to Spike National Debt to $45 Trillion.

Levin: GOP Senators Backing Infrastructure Chose ‘Tyranny’.

Sen. Markey: ‘The Green New Deal Is in the DNA’ of Democrats’ $3.5T Reconciliation Bill

Republican RINOs Betray GOP Grassroots Once Again

Nancy Pelosi Goes Full Kool-Aid Man Over the Infrastructure Deal

17 Republican Senators Line Up to Get Screwed on Infrastructure Deal

Senate Republicans Prostrate Themselves Before Joe Biden in Pathetic Display.

Sen. Cruz Warns That Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill Could ‘Obliterate’ Cryptocurrency.

Senator Grassley responds to constituent unrest with misdirection

August 11, 2021
Dear Mr. ****:

Thank you for taking the time to contact me about infrastructure funding. As your senator, it is important for me to hear from you.

I appreciate hearing your concerns about the infrastructure bill recently passed by the Senate. I recognize that there are a lot of rumors about what is actually in the bill passed by the Senate as opposed to what was in President Biden’s proposal – about two-thirds of which was not real infrastructure – or the House-passed infrastructure bill. I welcome this opportunity to respond to you and am happy to clear up any confusion.

First, I want to make clear that this bill does not contain the Equality Act or any amnesty for those here illegally. It does not implement a mileage tax or raise the gas tax, and in fact has no new taxes on individuals and families. It does not contain the trillions in free college, child care, and “human infrastructure” that some on the other side of the aisle have proposed.

What BS — it plans for a mileage tax and other taxing concepts further it does impose taxes in the form of inflation resulting from deficit spending. As for the free stuff the bill advances those toward a package requiring a mere majority vote

Instead, this bill is focused on physical infrastructure. It provides $110 billion for roads and bridges; $73 billion for the electric grid; $66 billion for passenger and freight rail; $55 billion for water and wastewater infrastructure, including funds to replace lead pipes; $43 billion to expand broadband access to rural and underserved areas; $39 billion for public transportation; $25 billion for airports; $17 billion for ports; and $12 billion for U.S. Army Corps of Engineers construction, such as for river navigation and flood prevention. I believe infrastructure of this kind is essential to keep the economy competitive, boost trade, and ensure high quality of living in every state. In Iowa, it is fundamental to moving our agriculture products, manufactured goods, and people. Iowa also has a large number of trucking companies, and truck traffic throughout the state is high. Investment in our core infrastructure systems helps our economy.

Really Senator, talking down to us when it is not focused predominantly on physical infrastructure certainly not bricks, mortar, steel and pavement, rather it paves the way for leftist planning boondoggles.  We all know some infrastructure was in it just not mostly.  Your job was to get the actual infrastructure without advancing a fiscal atrocity and worse.

Traditionally, there has been broad bipartisan support in Congress and across different presidential administrations for addressing these core infrastructure needs. For example, Congress has worked together in a bipartisan manner to draft and pass legislation to reauthorize surface transportation programs approximately every five years. Over the past five years there has been significant interest in passing a comprehensive infrastructure bill under both the Biden and Trump administrations.

This is exemplified by the fact that much of the compromise is made up of four preexisting bills – the Surface Transportation Reauthorization Act, the Surface Transportation Investment Act, the Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Act, and the Energy Infrastructure Act – that all went through regular order and were passed out of their respective committees with bipartisan support.

Seeing the nature of so much of it, the regular order you speak of is hardly comforting or exculpatory

These pieces of legislation would have gone through the floor process individually. For example, surface transportation programs that are operating under a one year extension set to expire on September 30, 2021, and almost certainly would have been renewed by Congress even without this compromise bill.

So you opted for something other than regular order

To be sure, there are parts of this bill I disagree with. Like any compromise, it isn’t perfect and nobody got everything they wanted or likes everything in the bill, but this bipartisan package is a vast improvement over the House-passed infrastructure bill and a far cry from President Biden’s initial proposals.

“Parts that you disagree with”. Parts, PARTS!! How is it you don’t disagree with most of it, which is cause to oppose something and go back to the drawing board

And ah yes,  the ‘it could have been worse argument’ as a substitute for it should have been stopped

Most prominently, I remain concerned about the cost of the bill. While the bill does not contain any increase in gas taxes, no new mileage taxes, and no tax increases on individuals or families, I consistently voted for amendments to limit the cost of the bill. Thankfully – as a result of bipartisan negotiations – much of the bill is also paid for through funds originally intended as part of previous COVID-19 packages.

Except those are not actually paid for, it all involves deficit spending 

This does not cover 100% of the cost, but I believe that on the whole this compromise is worth it.

The Dems did not get anything they did not want other than they would have preferred not giving Red states any pork and they intend to get one heck of a lot more with the reconciliation bill

As a result, on August 10, 2021, I joined a majority of my colleagues

Note he did not join the great majority of Republican colleagues but Dems are just regular old colleagues.  Why does it hurt to say I joined all Democrats, and the usual Republican suspects?

 in passing the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. While there are things that I would have changed in the bill, I voted for this legislation because it provides needed investments for Iowa’s infrastructure. This bipartisan bill (eech)  fixes potholes, rebuilds bridges, upgrades water systems, and brings broadband to rural corners of our state. It now heads to the U.S. House of Representatives for consideration.

Which is too imply there is no way Iowa would have got a penny but for his vote and Joni Ernst was out to starve Iowans and all those other Senators were out to starve their states.

Although I voted in favor of this bill, I certainly agree with the concerns about a second proposed $3.5 trillion package. This first bipartisan bill is the result of months of compromise and is focused on actual, real-world infrastructure.

You helped advance their cause for the 3.5 trillion.  They even told you what they were up to (see link above) 

But my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have also put forward a disastrous package that creates new entitlements is a purely partisan exercise. President Biden and his allies in Congress initially intended for this second package to ride along under the guise of “infrastructure.” This bipartisan infrastructure bill and the upcoming entitlement bill are separate issues and must be considered as such. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to play games by tying these two issues together, but now that we have addressed real infrastructure they will have to justify their reckless tax and spending spree to the American people on its own merits instead of calling it “infrastructure”. I fully intend to oppose and work to defeat the upcoming $3.5 trillion bill.

So your Democrat colleagues are “disaster” promulgators, they operate on a “purely partisan” basis (they needed you on the 1.2 they do not on the 3.5 because it is subject to different Senate rules) they “play games” (you are oblivious to them) “they are reckless tax and spenders” but they can be trusted on the merits of what you helped them pass.  Sheesh

Thank you again for contacting me. I hope you will continue to keep me informed of federal matters that are important to you. My offices in Iowa, as well as in Washington, D.C., are here to serve you.

Sincerely,

Chuck Grassley
United States Senator (for life)

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Ed Note: So much more could be said about this. The reader who forwarded the Grassley response was more succinct, describing it as  “what bull shit”