Over 100 people attended a town hall meeting held by Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley today at the Franklin County Courthouse in Hampton.
The meeting, which became heated at times, involved questions and comments from the audience, for example, like this one.
“That we have three branches of government. Run this country and determine our policy on the big issues. Are we going to turn Canada into the 51st state? Are we going to take over the Great Lakes? Are we going to impose tariffs throughout the world and hurt our Iowa manufacturers who happen to sell $5 billion every year of farm equipment, road equipment to the Canadians. If you look at GOMACO from Ida Grove, Iowa, they have five locations in Canada to sell pavement equipment. Pella Windows, together with Vermeer who has a dozen. My question, sir, and I think what’s on our mind here is where is Congress?
This person was very concerned about the future of the country.
“Seems to me that Trump and his people are moving very rapidly toward a dictatorship and an oligarchy. It’s very, very serious matter. Our country is in serious jeopardy, it seems to me, cutting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and a whole lot of other programs, even though they deny they’re going to do it. And firing people at will and just randomly isn’t solving anything.”
RadioOnTheGo News asked Grassley about his thoughts on hearing so many concerns from the meeting.
“Well, I think you can draw the conclusions. I win by landslides, but I don’t win by 100 % of the vote. So having people disagree with you is what democracy is all about.”
Grassley was also asked about the future of the U-S Department of Education.
“Because since the Department of Education has been set up, test scores have gone way down. It hasn’t contributed to anything to the education of our kids because that’s all done at the state and local level and it will still be done at the state and local level and that’s where it should be done. The Department of Education can’t be done away with because Congress created it and Congress can only do away with it and you’d never get 60 votes in the United States Senate to do that.”
There were some protesters outside the courthouse after the meeting ended.
