Oversight
Grassley, Collins Op-Ed | A Modest Proposal To Avert Future Budget Crises: Regular Order
It's business as usual these days in Washington: months of procrastinating as a looming fiscal disaster roils the markets, followed by a last-minute deal that nobody really likes, only to set another deadline for the next fiscal crisis. It's the way we've operated for years. Congress consistently fails to adopt a budget or pass government funding bills, prompting a needless game of chicken with a government shutdown right around the holiday season. As a result, we end up passing mas… Continue Reading
06.07.23
Grassley Discusses Precision Ag, Biogas with Iowa Witnesses
WASHINGTON – During today’s Budget Committee hearing, Ranking Member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) discussed agricultural and energy innovation with two Iowa witnesses who testified at the senator’s invitation. Grassley first questioned Brent Johnson, president of the Iowa Farm Bureau, on the use of precision agriculture to increase crop yields and protect the environment. He then asked Bryan Sievers, chief operating officer of Sievers Family Farms and director of government r… Continue Reading
06.07.23
Grassley Welcomes Iowans To Budget Hearing On Agricultural Innovation, Environmental Stewardship
Prepared Statement by Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) Ranking Member, Senate Budget Committee Hearing titled “Cultivating Stewardship: Examining the Changing Agricultural Landscape” VIDEO Today, we’re holding our ninth hearing on climate change. In each of these hearings, I’ve taken an opportunity to remind everybody what the Budget Committee’s about. So, I urge the Committee to focus more on our country’s unsustainable debt and my remin… Continue Reading
06.07.23
Grassley Welcomes Iowans To Budget Hearing On Agricultural Innovation, Environmental Stewardship
Prepared Statement by Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) Ranking Member, Senate Budget Committee Hearing titled “Cultivating Stewardship: Examining the Changing Agricultural Landscape” VIDEO Today, we’re holding our ninth hearing on climate change. In each of these hearings, I’ve taken an opportunity to remind everybody what the Budget Committee’s about. So, I urge the Committee to focus more on our country’s unsustainable debt and my reminding eve… Continue Reading
05.17.23
Grassley Opening Remarks At Budget Hearing On Tax Cuts & The National Debt
Prepared Opening Statement by Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa Ranking Member, Senate Budget Commitee Hearing on “The Rich Get Richer, Deficits Get Bigger: How Tax Cuts for the Wealthy and Corporations Drive the National Debt” Wednesday, May 17, 2023 VIDEO Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding today’s hearing. It’s a welcome break from the series of climate change hearings. However, today’s hearing title suggests we’re likely to h… Continue Reading
05.10.23
Grassley Welcomes Gov. Branstad At Budget Hearing On Climate Change
Prepared Statement by Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa Ranking Member, Senate Committee on the Budget Hearing titled “Lessons Learned: Leadership Perspectives and Experience on the National Costs of Climate Change” May 10, 2023 VIDEO Today marks our eighth hearing on climate change. Today’s hearing is in a much bigger room, with a larger audience, more cameras, and an impressive panel of government leaders. If only we were using this platform to sh… Continue Reading
05.06.23
Grassley, Republican Colleagues Demand to See Spending and Budget Reform Before Raising the Debt Limit
WASHINGTON – Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, joined Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and 42 Republican senators in committing to oppose increasing the debt ceiling without substantive spending and budget reforms. The notice came in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). The letter to Schumer is also signed by Sens. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), John Boozman (R-Ark.), Mike Braun (R-Ind.), Ted Budd (R-N.C.), Sh… Continue Reading
05.04.23
Transparency Brings Accountability: The Justice Department Must Come Clean To The American People
Prepared Floor Remarks Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa Transparency Brings Accountability: The Justice Department Must Come Clean To The American People May 4, 2023 VIDEO Mr./Madame President, In the past several years, I’ve taken to this floor to discuss my constitutional oversight of the Justice Department and FBI. In many of those floor speeches, I’ve discussed legally protected and unclassified whistleblower disclosures made to … Continue Reading
05.04.23
Grassley: Democrats Must Finally Get Serious about Debt Limit Negotiations
Prepared Remarks by Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa Ranking Member, Senate Committee on the Budget Hearing Titled “The Default on America Act: Blackmail, Brinkmanship, and Billionaire Backroom Deals” May 4, 2023 VIDEO Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding today’s hearing on the House-passed Limit, Save, Grow Act. House Republicans have acted responsibly by passing a debt limit increase while also beginning to tackle our country’s u… Continue Reading
05.03.23
Grassley Gives Opening Statement At Budget Hearing On Fossil Fuels
Prepared Opening Statement by Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa Ranking Member, Senate Budget Committee Hearing on “Who Pays the Price: The Real Cost of Fossil Fuels” Wednesday, May 3, 2023 VIDEO Last week’s hearing on climate change and public health was another missed opportunity to discuss our nation’s ailing fiscal health. That same day, House Republicans passed legislation to rein in excessive government spending, lift the debt ceiling and impose meaningful fiscal controls. Meanwh… Continue Reading
04.26.23
Grassley Opening Remarks At Budget Hearing On “Health Costs Of Climate Change”
Prepared Opening Statement by Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa Ranking Member, Senate Budget Committee Hearing on “Under the Weather: Diagnosing the Health Costs of Climate Change” April 26, 2023 VIDEO Last week’s hearing on tax policy was really refreshing. Revenues are a critical part of the federal budget, and we should remain very focused on the pressing fiscal issues facing our country. Our Republican colleagues in the House introduced legislation to lift the debt ceil… Continue Reading
04.18.23
Grassley Opening Remarks at Hearing on Tax Revenue and Dodging
Prepared Opening Statement by Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa Ranking Member, Senate Budget Committee Hearing on “A Rigged System: The Cost of Tax Dodging by the Wealthy and Big Corporations” April 18, 2023 Revenues to the federal government are a fundamental part of the budget and a subject that this committee ought to be studying. However, I want to stress that the fundamental problem we have in the federal budget is not one of under taxation, but of overspending. The la… Continue Reading
04.18.23
Credit Suisse Maintained Nazi-Linked Accounts into 21st Century, Subpoenaed Records Show
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Multiple reports shine a new light on Credit Suisse’s historical servicing of Nazi clients and Nazi-linked accounts, which in some cases continued until as recently as 2020. The reports, released by the Senate Budget Committee on Holocaust Remembrance Day, detail a multi-year internal investigation by a forensic research firm retained by Credit Suisse and initially overseen by an Independent Ombudsperson who was inexplicably terminated by the bank during the cou… Continue Reading
03.29.23
Grassley Statement at Hearing on "The Cost of Oil Dependence"
Prepared Opening Statement by Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa Ranking Member, Senate Budget Committee Hearing: “Left Holding the Bag: The Cost of Oil Dependence in a Low-Carbon World” March 29, 2023 Mr. Chairman, I’ve had the honor of serving Iowa in the Senate for over 40 years. I’ve been in your shoes when I chaired the Finance and Judiciary Committees. I’ve seen plenty of problems facing our nation, and most were resolved through bipartisanship. And bi… Continue Reading
03.22.23
Grassley Discusses Biden Budget At Fourth Budget Committee Hearing On Climate Change
Prepared Statement by U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) Ranking Member, Senate Budget Committee Hearing titled “Risky Business: How Climate Change is Changing Insurance Markets Wednesday, March 22, 2023 The audience for today’s hearing on private insurance is different than last week’s hearing on the President’s 2024 Budget. As such, I would like to recap what we heard last week at our first, and only, budget centric hearing this Congress. What we received… Continue Reading
03.15.23
Biden’s Budget Brings More Taxes, More Debt, Less Opportunity, Fewer Resources For Essential Government Services
Prepared Statement by U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa)Ranking Member, Senate Budget CommitteeHearing on the President's Fiscal Year 2024 Budget ProposalWednesday, March 15, 2023VIDEO Mr. Chairman, I appreciate your holding today’s hearing on the President’s fiscal year 2024 budget. I hope that it will be the first of many hearings focused on our nation’s finances. And I’d like to thank our witness, Director Young, for being here today. Some decades ago when the federal government was… Continue Reading
03.09.23
A Month Late and Trillions Short: Biden’s Budget Charts Unsustainable Course on Federal Spending
WASHINGTON - On March 9, 2023, President Biden released an overview of his fiscal year (FY) 2024 budget request. The Biden Budget attempts to build on the Administration’s false claims of deficit reduction by repackaging unpopular proposals to raise trillions in taxes to cover its continued reckless spending binge. Senate Budget Committee Ranking Member Chuck Grassley issued the following statement: “President Biden’s FY2024 budget proposal is a roadmap to fiscal ruin. From its delayed rol… Continue Reading
03.08.23
Grassley Discusses Federal Budget At Budget Hearing On Wildfires
Prepared Statement by Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa)Ranking Member, Senate Committee on the BudgetHearing titled “A Burning Issue: The Economic Costs of Wildfires”March 8, 2023 Mr. Chairman, tomorrow the President will submit a portion of his 2024 Budget to Congress. Like his first two Budgets, this one will arrive over a month late. When the President’s budget is delayed the Congressional process is held up. A delayed process postpones when appropriators and aut… Continue Reading
03.01.23
Grassley Statement at Hearing on "Rising Seas, Rising Costs"
Prepared Opening Statement by Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa Ranking Member, Senate Committee on the Budget Hearing on Rising Seas, Rising Costs: Climate Change and the Economic Risks to Coastal Communities March 1, 2023 One week ago, the Congressional Budget Office released its budget and economic outlook. This non-partisan report provides us a much-needed fiscal reality check on the state of our nation’s finances. Grim, dire, bleak. All have been used to describ… Continue Reading
02.23.23
Grassley: Joe Biden And I Fought Deficit Disaster Together As Senators. Four Decades Later, We Need Fiscal Sanity
by Sen. Chuck Grassley
In 1984, when faced with $200 billion deficits and a national debt nearing $2 trillion, an emphatic Democrat Sen. Joe Biden warned of "economic disaster" unless Congress took "dramatic actions on deficits right now." He was advocating for a government-wide spending freeze - a bipartisan proposal that he and I led to restore fiscal restraint to the federal government. Today, our total national debt has surpassed $31 trillion - 15 times larger than 1984. Our public debt as a share of our econ… Continue Reading
