Iowa Press; 1426; Tom Tauke

Oh. A. Major funding for this program was provided by friends of Iowa Public Television. These confer some time issues ranging from health care to education to agriculture. And he's considered a bright light in the Republican Party. He's Iowa congressman Tom talky get to be a Republican. And our guest tonight Iowa press. This is the Sunday April 5th edition of Iowa Prouse. Good evening Iowa congressman Tom talky is a leading proponent of Social Security reform also a job training funds for farmers hard hit by the poor farm economy. And he was instrumental in organizing a bipartisan coalition dedicated to promoting a

stronger health care system in rural areas. The second district representative from Dubuque is our guest this week. Talking is serving his fifth term in the Congress he's been characterized by two major magazines as a rising star another one called him promising an up and coming as a member of the House of Representatives. But just as he's getting such national recognition he has said that he would consider leaving the Congress to return to Iowa and one day maybe run for governor. Congressman talk you'll be questioned by David yaps I'm a political reporter for The Des Moines Register and by Eric Woolson a political reporter for the Waterloo courier. Congressman talking are you going to run for governor. At the current time the office is occupied and I could very well I think Governor Branstad. And it is my anticipation that Governor Branstad will run for re-election in 1990 and I wouldn't hesitate supporting him at that time. Would you run for the U.S. Senate in 1990 against Tom Harkin. It's very difficult to speculate this far in advance and I think sometimes we forget the

issues of today by looking too far ahead. But there are indicated to me that it would be a good cause and certainly at the appropriate time it is something that I might consider. Is it possible that you would leave the Congress just as you're moving into fields more power and authority and seniority and influence to to run for governor or the Senate. Why wouldn't you just want to stay in the U.S. House for a while. I might. There are many options that are available I think in the future as all of which aren't within my control obviously but I have a deep interest in public service and I hope that circumstances will allow me to continue to remain in public service but I recognize that I also have other obligations. For example family obligations which happily are growing and so as I look to the future I have to first keep those obligations in mind and if it if it's

possible for me to continue in public service I will if I remain in public service then I could continue in the House of Representatives and hope that as a seniority increases that I would have an opportunity to play a greater role in the formation of policy in the nation. But clearly there are other options available as well. Is there any set of circumstances that you might challenge Governor Branstad in the primary in 1990. None of which I can conceive at the current time. What if the governor does not run for reelection there is some talk that he won't do it. He's a in his mid 40s. He has no real appreciable net worth he's put a lot of his money into his farm three kids dedicate and he might just want to hang it up if it becomes open then. Then what are your considerations. I think it's been no secret that I prefer living and I want to living in Washington. And it's also no secret when I talk about raising children and schooling and so on that I'd much prefer to be in Iowa rather than in Washington D.C. and so

combining that with the frustrations of Congress having to work with the 435 people in the House of Representatives 100 in the Senate. There are a lot of things about the governor's office that would be very attractive to me. At the same time however I do not want to suggest in any way that that is something for which planning and it isn't the whole issue arose because somebody said if you could likely think about whatever you could I wanted to do that you could do would you consider running for governor Governor Branstad. No I haven't talked to Governor Branstad about it as indicated at the outset. A I think we talk about these things too far in advance and B as far as I know the governor is interested in staying in it for a while and I fully expect to be supporting him and they are active in this what they call the 92 group a group of you trying to take the U.S. House for the

Republicans in 1992 after the next report human. You think that's an impossible task where you think even thinking about a Senate seat in governor's races if conceivably Republicans can take control of the U.S. House of 1992 you'd be an excellent seniority position were that to occur. No it is not an impossible task. Frankly I think that it is quite feasible that the Republicans could gain majority status in 1992 after the reapportionment of 1990. Various experts look at reapportionment 1990 and expect that Republicans would probably gain 15 to 20 seats as a result of that. If we had a good year in the 1988 presidential election it is feasible that Republicans could be in the majority in the Congress that would be elected in 1992. But that obviously is speculation as well. I might decide to stay in the Congress and attempt to do. Use the seniority that I have acquired to push issues in which I am interested and better serve the

people of the district I'm just not prepared to make that decision at this juncture. But I'm not foreclosing other options. They're part of the Republican success I think is going to depend on how personal Reagan is perceived the next two years. One of them vote in the Senate Thursday due to his leadership abilities. The rest is history. I suspect that next week that will be last year's issue that's how quickly time flies and the Washington scene and what always is the battle of the century. One week is a mere almost forgotten a few weeks later. I think that the president probably re-established themselves in this battle as being engaged viable alert having a handle on the issues. And although I disagreed with him on this particular issue it seemed to me that he made something of a comeback in Congress even though he lost. I think he also indicated that he's going to be a force to be reckoned with during the remainder of this Congress.

We're referring August to the highway bill in dollars. Isn't that a budget buster. Isn't the president right that this cost too much money and we can't afford it. It depends on whose budget you look at if you look at the president's budget yes it did exceed what he requested for highway funding if you look at the budgets adopted by Congress. Then it's then this is not a budget buster. But beyond that I think that this is a measure that had to be looked at from a couple of other perspectives. The first is that the money that is spent on highways comes out of a trust fund. You know we pay gas taxes the gas tax money goes into the trust fund and that's the money that's used to build the roadways. And we've been building up money in that pressed fund we've been taxing people more than we've been spending on the roadways. And there are a number of us who believe that we shouldn't be building up money in the trust funds to offset our deficits in the general fund. And so consequently there is some justification we believe for using the trust fund money for what it was intended. But the second factor the game and the consideration is that Congress has had a very difficult time putting this highway bill together. And you can say Congress is

to blame. Certainly has been. But nevertheless we've been waiting months and months to get a highway bill together. Now we are at the beginning of the construction season. If this bill is vetoed those there is no guarantee that we can get another one together in two weeks or three weeks or four weeks. Once the money flows then you have to wait 45 days for the letting of the contracts. So there was great danger if this bill went down the tubes at a state like Ohio would see much of the construction season disappear before the money came out from the federal level. Then what you have just mentioned I'm interested in the political implications of what happened it was a defeat for President Reagan who actually came to Capitol Hill in an effort to sway some votes and he didn't get the job done that says that Congress is becoming a little more assertive. What does it mean for a Republican congressman like you if Congress is getting to be a little more assertive in these final two years of the Reagan administration number one. And you as a Republican with a Republican President Hu's we need influence.

Well first I don't think that we should read too much into this vote. I think the problem was not that the president couldn't exert influence he exerted quite a bit of influence are you convinced about 16 senators to change their vote. But the real story was is that he attempted to exert influence too late. Once people have cast their votes on one side of an issue it's really difficult to turn around and suddenly put yourself on the other side of the issue. There was no indication from the White House early on in the process that they were terribly unhappy with this piece of legislation. So in that sense the strategy was bad. And that's what hurt the president. I don't think it was an indication that his influence is waning that much in fact. Frank he did better than I thought he would. Let's look at more than just the heat. We need some influence at least that's my obviously has some troubles that he is not the powerful figure the dominant figure in the Washington scene that he was a year ago when he broke a shoes that have for you the implication for Congress as a whole is

that the Democrats are going to be setting their own agenda and I think rather than having one agenda in Washington we will have two agendas we will have the president's agenda and then we will have an agenda set by the Democratic leadership in Congress as we did in past. It can mean an impasse. It also means that the Democrats are under greater pressure to produce. And that might mean that some things will move forward that we will reach some accommodations on critical issues like trade like arms control. If you're going to do these two agendas include the rural development. It's an issue that's going to be a lot of talk around here these days. I think the Congress is considerably more sensitive to the rural development issue than it was two years ago and certainly than it was five years ago and in a variety of ways. I think we have seen that Congress is anxious to work toward were a live element. And I find my colleagues from the urban areas of the country saying we'd be pleased to support something if you'll just tell us what it is that we should be doing.

And so I think that the challenge is really for us who represent the rural areas to put forward the programs we have in the past we've put forward a program which was adopted at the committee level on worker retraining for agricultural workers. We have next week I will be introducing along with several of my colleagues in the Rural Health Coalition a whole package of bills dealing with the problems of health care in rural area and the delivery of health care services to rural Americans. So I think that we are beginning to get our act together in the development of the initiatives that I expect will receive fairly good support from the Congress to do something that other Iowans can do in this arena. Is the weight all on our congressional delegation. Clearly we don't have all the wisdom in the state residing in the members of Congress who represent the state. We have a very reliant on people in state government and those in the private sector to help us in the development of these initiatives. The worker retraining program that we put in as part of the trade bill this past

week was initiated by state government. Actually the State Government of Kansas and the governor of Iowa as a result of the agricultural taskforce efforts over the last several months initiated this program which then I happened to carry in the Education and Labor Committee. Congressman I want you to put more of a future orientation to all of this and tell us what you see coming down the road in the field of of trade you mentioned trade we mentioned rural development. Where are these issues headed. Working Americans see U.S. trade policy in the next 15 years and we're all caught up in what somebody did to the Japanese last week. But do you have a sense this these problems are getting resolved that Congress has a fix on rural development problems or trade take trade worst trade policy head. Well first of all looking at 15 years I think we have to recognize that our most serious trade problems are not government policy problems in the trade area. They are government policy problems on the fiscal and monetary or you know where we have been running huge deficits. And

secondly they are problems that relate to the competitiveness of our industry generally and their education system and a whole variety of other things within our society. And so in the long term we're going to address the trade issue only if we address our fiscal problems and address our other problems that could be put under the broad label of competitiveness in terms of trade policy itself it's clear I think that we are going to take a much harder line on our trade relationships with other countries than we have in the past. And I do expect that we will see unfolding in this Congress an agreement between the president and the Democratic leadership on trade issues being hammered out much the way the tax bill was in the last Congress. I think that that will mean that there will be first of all greater incentives given for the export of U.S. products there will be heavy emphasis on export as a result of the Presidents perspective on that issue. In turn there will be a much. Harder line on imports as a result of the Democrats perspective on the import issue

and the import question I think will be left substantially in the hands of the president. But he is going to have a lot more tools on which to fight unfair trade practices from other countries. What about rural America which is a rural development policy where do you see that that headed in terms of agricultural policy I think that we will see more emphasis placed on the export side of the agricultural equation. We clearly will see as part of the trade bill in my judgment an increase of government subsidies if you well just support the sale of our agricultural products. And the purpose of that will be to get all of the nations who are major producers to the table to reach worldwide agreements on agricultural trade which we have been unable to get over the last several years. You mentioned in passing I'd like to rural hospitals a moment ago and I'd like to follow Dave's line of questioning. Looking down the rule would rule hospitals right now are

struggling to stay open and you are striving to get them some more reimbursement through Medicaid here because you believe that the formula is I understand what you've been trying to do you understand the formula for paying Medicare funds to room hospitals. Is not the same as it is to larger city hospitals do you think get them more revenue. Do you think you can be successful in that it is the future of real health care. Well first I think we can be successful in the Medicare friend last year for example the average rural hospital received a 6 to 7 percent increase in reimbursement under Medicare. Well hospitals as a whole nationwide received only a one percent increase. And Medicare payments. So as a result of some changes we initiated in the formula we did get some improvement in the treatment of rural hospitals. Now we have a long way to go and we hope this year we can take a few more steps forward and getting fair treatment. But the fact of the matter is just so I at once know that today there is about a 35 percent

differential between the reimbursement received by urban hospitals in our state and the reimbursement received by rural hospitals on the state for performing exactly the same service. And that simply isn't fair. But beyond the hospital question then the reimbursement under Medicare there are a whole host of other issues relating to the delivery of health care in rural areas. Let me just take one example. Hospitals are being patients are being dismissed from hospitals earlier now and most urban areas you have a Visiting Nurses Association on a variety of other services to provide home health care for those patients who are released early and rural areas that often is not the case. So we need to develop those kinds of support services as well in the rural areas. Congressman you have been active in Biomedical Ethics Committee to say that issue was front burner here recently with the Baby M case. Where is Congress going to get into this whole field of

surrogate motherhood and all the implications that that have that issue hand as legal moral the Catholic church is taken some positions on that. Again a future where intuition where is that issue headed in America in the wake of this decision will Congress be taking some actions to clarify what can and cannot be done and by scientists in this field. We are so far behind in policy relating to the field of bio medical ethics that I'm not certain whether the nation's political system can catch up with the technology and the scientific development. But clearly we have to try because the pain and anguish that has been have advanced in the Baby M case is the kind of thing that perhaps can be avoided to some extent if we have some decent social and political policies to deal with the scientific and technological developments. My own judgment is that Congress is not ready to rush in because we don't know where to go. And that's precisely why the biomedical ethics board joint House-Senate board was put together to try

over the next couple of years to get some decent answers to some of these questions. We are studying and trying to bring in at the scientists and to look at you want to get into I mean I think that would be politically very very sensitive waters to get into politically. There is no way in. And it is very sensitive about you get make met very many people happy for everyone you make happy you make one happy. But just because it's politically difficult doesn't mean that it shouldn't be done. I think that it is clear that we are going to have to have policies relating to the. What kinds of services can be bought and sold in this country can you buy and sell organs can you buy and sell parts of your body can you buy and sell the use of your body can you buy and sell children. That's all tied up with this case. Then there is the whole question of who is going to receive certain kinds of services and who will not. Right now we don't like to talk about it but there are a lot of health care services that are available if you have the money. But if you don't have the money those

services aren't available then of course there's the experimentation on a variety of fetuses. There's experimentation and human beings some who are elderly as should that kind of thing be permitted range of issues or believable. And of course AIDS raises lots of questions. Let's talk about when BBM becomes grandma and talk about Social Security. You said you favor an independent board for Social Security to kind of remove politics. From from the whole equation not too many people my age have too much confidence that the money they put into the system now is going to be around when they get there. Do we need a means test. Do we need to rebuild the social security system or do we do to make sure it's around for a guy my age. It seems to me that there were two things that needed to be done in order to be to make sure that Social Security is sound in the future. The first step was taken last year and that was to remove the Social Security system from the normal budget

process in our nation. Social Security is also one of those trust funds that is building up. And if you use the trust fund money to offset your deficit in other areas that causes problems down the road. So beginning in 1998. Under legislation passed last year Social Security will be out of the federal budget and out of the budget process. The second step is removing Social Security from the political structure of the nation if you will by make establishing an independent commission to run the Social Security Administration in the last 11 years we've had 10 social security administrators and the clear perception is that the agency is being run with political goals in mind. I think we need to have a three or five member commission that would run the agency and set long term policies. Now we have we'll have in the Social Security trust fund. Under current law two trillion that's not million or billion two trillion dollars by the year 2000. Now if you have two trillion dollars over here and Congress over there

you've got trouble unless you do something to insulate that 2 trillion dollars and that's the challenge for the next 15 years if we do that the money will be there when the baby boomers like you when they retire. What about the whole issue of we've talked about health care. A lot of money is spent on people in the in the you know closing months of their of their lives. We talk about Social Security here and a lot of people getting benefits that they didn't you know dollar for dollar having put in which leaves baby boomers in the situation where they won't get out of that system nearly what what they put into it. Are we doing too much for older Americans. I don't think so. We are in the process of the moment looking at the Older Americans Act. I'm on that Subcommittee ranking on that and we're about to move through a reauthorization of the Older Americans Act in the next several weeks and I think as we have looked at all of the issues relating to that act that it's become clear that we have made a substantial commitment to the elderly in the country. There's

still a significant number of senior citizens who have serious problems and who need additional assistance in order to meet those problems. And I think our society as a whole has made a commitment to attempt to meet many of the needs of the elderly as we possibly can but now we have to avoid generational conflict. All right. That there is going to be a necessity of ensuring that there is something for the future as well. And that's why things like the Social Security issue have to be there's a higher incidence of poverty among children now than there are among senior citizens. That is why it's crossed a couple years ago. So what are you guys doing about it. Well I think that we need to look at the children's issues as well and again I think Congress is more sensitive to that than it was a couple of years ago. For example the Head Start program is one of the few programs that has received substantial increases in funding during the last several years. One of the things that people who are spending this money look at is how much is it going to cost me just to keep up with inflation. Inflation has been pretty cool here in the past few years. There is

some concern no that it's going to heat up again I'd like to have you look in your crystal ball you you looked a minute ago and said we've got to get our fiscal house in order because it relates to our trade policy. What do you think about where we're headed with inflation and interest rates. My judgment is that we do not need to expect or fear an outbreak of inflation during the next a couple of years our monetary policy has been managed in such a way by the Federal Reserve Board that it seems to me that it is unlikely that inflation will skyrocket in the forseeable future. There is one danger on the horizon and that is energy policy which was certainly a contributing factor in the problems we had in the 70s. We are again becoming dangerously dependent on foreign oil and if foreign oil producers would be able to coordinate their activities in the nineteen eighties late 1980s as well as they did in the 70s we could again have a serious problem with energy prices which would

then be the trigger for higher inflation. No one but in the 70s we had monetary policies and fiscal policies that greatly contributed to inflation. Now the monetary policy seems to be under control fiscal policy is not in the energy policy. No one. Congressman we've got just a couple minutes left the caucuses are nearing. The campaigns are underway you've endorsed George Bush. But give us your handicap of how you see the Republican presidential caucus fight in Iowa. Well it's very early yet but it does appear to me as if the two front runners are Bush and they are well ahead of the pack. It would appear to me that some others still have a chance to break out of the pack but Bush are rapidly gaining commitments across the state and someone makes a move fairly soon it's going to be a two man race and I have one who's likely to break out of the pack. It's so hard to say for I had

frankly expected that by now Jack Kemp would have shown Maher strength in the state. Jack is very capable I served with him in the U.S. Congress and it appeared to me that he would have strong appeal to a certain constituency in the state and so far that hasn't developed. Were you for George Bush. No sitting vice president has been elected to the American presidency since Martin Van Buren in 1836. Weren't you buying into a losing proposition. I didn't check out whether or not he'd win or lose before I bought into. I said to myself who will be the best president. And I think that he is the most competent individual on the scene and I think right now the nation desperately needs competent leadership. And I think we also need someone who can attract the best and the brightest if you will in the government we think Bush can do that. Bob Dole know more about the problems of Brule America than George Bush. From Connecticut and Texas. Bob Dole has a great record on rural America and I think George Bush is learning fast.

Where will George Bush fall out in all this that we've been talking about earlier in the power of the presidency and how much did he know about Iran and so on how badly has George Bush been hurt by all that. It's too early to tell if nothing else happens I think that it will not be a significant factor by the time the Iowa caucuses and the 1988 elections roll around. If some disclosures come out of which a lot of us are aware now obviously that could be devastating not only to Bush but to others who think Washington can forget that fast. It isn't whether or not Washington forgets it's whether or not I will read them. Thank you Congressman talk being our guest this week and I will press before we go we'd like to tell you that if you have any questions comments or suggestions about I will press you can write this at Post Office Box 64 50 in Johnston Iowa and the zip code is 5 0 1 3 1. Again post office box 64 50 and zip it in at 5 a 1 3 1. That's it for this week. Thanks for joining us for panelist Dave yaps and Eric Wilson. Take one is next time.

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