Grassley Direct
On my weekly "Capitol Hill Report," I spoke with Nikki Thunder of KCHE in Cherokee and Mike Hohenbrink of the Calmar Courier about the Supreme Court and prescription drug pricing.
Q&A: Expanding Markets for Family Farms
Q. Why did you push to create Value-Added Producer Grants?
Q. How does the VAPG program help independent producers?
Quick Links
As chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, lowering the cost of prescription drugs has been one of my top priorities this year. I recently joined Ranking Member Ron Wyden of Oregon in updating our bipartisan Prescription Drug Pricing Reduction Act of 2019 and reached an agreement to fund critical, expiring health care programs. This updated legislation turns a very good bill into a great bill that will help Americans afford the prescription drugs they need. Seniors and Americans with disabilities will see even lower out-of-pocket costs. And it achieves all of this without charging the taxpayer a dime more. Big Pharma will also finally be held accountable to taxpayers who subsidize their billions of dollars in annual profits.
The Department of Defense (DoD) released yet another failed audit. Last year, Congress authorized more than $700 billion dollars for the DoD. That’s a lot of money. And that’s why it’s a big deal the Pentagon is unable to account for the hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars it spends from one year to the next. Every dollar we approve for the DoD is crucial to our national security. We must ensure America’s sons and daughters in uniform are well-paid and well-equipped to defend this country. And that’s why I work tirelessly to hold the Pentagon accountable. The only way we will root out fraud and wasteful spending is by knowing where the money is being spent. We need a clean audit and reliable accounting systems. Watch my full floor speech here.
I recently joined Senator Warren in sending a letter to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) over its lack of action on writing rules to allow the sale of over-the-counter hearing aids and requesting a status update. In 2017 our bill, the Over-the-Counter Hearing Aid Act, was signed into law. By allowing hearing aids to be sold over-the-counter, there is more competition in the market and that will result in much lower prices. Last October, the FDA announced that writing those rules would be a priority for the agency, but has shown no sign of progress since.
As part of my continued oversight work, I wrote to the World Bank President requesting a meeting regarding recent reports of a highly questionable $50 million loan provided to a Chinese organization associated with the forcible internment of some in the minority Uighur population. The World Bank was created to help economic development in the world’s poorest countries. They should not, using American tax dollars, be lending to wealthy countries that violate the human rights of their citizens and attempt to dominate weaker countries either militarily or economically. Watch my recent floor speech on this here.
Post of the Week
The “first reading of the emancipation proclamation by president lincoln” hangs above the west staircase outside the Senate floor. #realhistorychannel It depicts Lincoln reading the 1st draft of his Emancipation Proclamation in 1862 at the White House to members of his cabinet. Congress accepted Carpenter’s portrait in joint session on Feb 12 1878, 69 yrs after Lincoln’s birth.
|
