And as this hour of KXEL Live and Local continues, it's our monthly conversation with U.S.
Senator Charles Grassley, the new Hartford Republican called in yesterday early afternoon, so you could hear this conversation now.
As you and I are talking senator on Tuesday afternoon I see the schedule for the ag committee suggests conversation about a farm bill on Thursday morning give us a your sense of what's in the bill what kind of quality do we see in this bill and what do you think the prospects are of it moving from committee this week
I think first of all I'll start with something that we did last year that would be normally in the farm bill we raise supports or
corn, soybeans and other commodities.
We greatly improved the crop insurance program.
We appropriated money for promoting egg exports and for agriculture research.
Now that's usually what you call Title I of the bill.
There's about eight or nine titles in a whole bill.
And I would expect that we're going to update a lot of things because of inflation.
Because the last time we wrote a five-year farm bill was 2018, so you can see we're three years behind getting a new farm bill.
Some of that would be increasing the loan limits.
Some of it would be more flexibility for CRP and things of that.
Now, the chances of getting a farm bill are better than they've ever been in these three years, because already a farm bill has passed the house.
There's still some things for Chairman Boosman to work out with the Democrats in order to get a bipartisan bill, and most ag bills are always bipartisan.
But the Democrats still have some negotiation to go with him.
But there's supposed to be a markup on Thursday.
And as you're asking me this question, I expect that to happen on Thursday.
Now, maybe Thursday will come, and it won't happen.
And then if it doesn't happen this Thursday, it won't happen until the second week.
But there's one thing that's really good news for Iowans beside what I said we did in last year's tax bill, and that is that E15 will be included in this bill.
And if we can get E15, that's about worth $14 billion to corn farmers.
I've seen some folks from Texas who have been posting on social media that the E15 would be a terrible thing Do you think you can overcome that kind of opposition and get this across the finish line?
We had to make some changes in the house bill on E15 and It was supposed to satisfy the very same people that you're quoting now Maybe you don't satisfy a hundred percent of the people that don't want E15 but most of it is called
come from refineries.
And I'm told that this bill is satisfactory and the compromise satisfactory to refineries, at least to the senators from the five states that have these refineries and stopped E-15 from happening last February.
I'm interested in the bankruptcy threshold adjustment act.
Now, this was something that
you spearheaded, and I'm interested in what the prospects are for this going forward and what the impact will be on the Iowa economy broadly.
Yeah, well, it just updates the bankruptcy bill.
It passed the Senate unanimously very recently, and it takes care of some of the problems that we had because of some court decisions.
that actually were contrary to what Congress intended when we wrote the bankruptcy legislation and don't forget bankruptcy legislation's been around for over a hundred years and courts sometimes misinterpret some of it and we're trying to bring it up to up to date.
And again chapter 12 very important with regard to
the family farm and that was created some 40 years ago now.
Is it in the status necessary in the event we have some problems with agriculture going forward?
Is it as up to date as it should be in other words?
Well, the answer is yes, but we've also have now chapter 12 of the bankruptcy code is the
family farm bankruptcy legislation that you're asking about, uh, that was, uh, uh, set up on a temporary basis
in the
1930s and the 1950s when we had some farm problems.
And then it wasn't
in existence until 1986 when we had another farm crisis and I got it renewed at that particular time, but it's sunset.
two or three times since then.
So we finally got a permanent legislation, at least within the last 10 years.
So we don't have to wait till a farm crisis to come along to have something just for family farmers.
Chapter seven, chapter 11, those are bankruptcy codes for other purposes.
And then family farms would always have to go
to those those chapters of the bankruptcy code and play frankly a farming is different than any other business and thank God we got a special chapter 12 for farm bankruptcy that meets the special needs of family farms as opposed to small business which is usually chapter 12 or no chapter 13 or corporate
corporate bankruptcies which is chapter 11.
I want to shift topics now and talk about social security.
I see in this very busy week that you folks have in the Senate before the August break there's a hearing on social security and solvency and I think that there are some automatic triggers that kick in as early as 2032 if changes aren't made etc and I'm just wondering
what the purpose of the hearing is, and our steps being taken to make sure that we don't have those mandatory cuts that are triggered in current law.
Well, I had a bipartisan hearing at the subcommittee of the finance committee on this very issue, and it was a predecessor to Chairman Craple of the finance committee having a full senate hearing, so kind of
our subcommittee hearing elevated to the full committee, where it's getting more attention from all 27 members of the finance committee, as opposed to just seven or eight members of the subcommittee.
And it's the start of a dialogue we have to have for the problem you just brought up, that by the end of 2032, the surpluses
in the Social Security Trust Fund that resulted from the compromise of President Reagan way back in the 1980s.
It built up a big reserve.
That reserve is going to be gone.
And then the law says that you could only pay out what comes in from the payroll tax.
And that will be about a 22% cut.
And we got to act quickly.
to get reforms made in Social Security so that everybody gets 100% after 2032, just like they are before 2032.
But the longer you wait, the more difficult it is.
In fact, I'd have to say Congress has already waited too long.
As you and I are speaking, it's Tuesday afternoon and this morning you chaired the Judiciary Committee hearing on the nomination of Todd Blanche to be the new Attorney General that made its way through the committee.
It was not an easy process, however.
I'm curious as to your thoughts about how the process got us to this point to get it through the committee.
This had to do with that fund, and I know you have some thoughts on the fund that was at issue, but I wonder if his nomination is secure in the full Senate.
I think it's going to be successful on the floor of the United States Senate.
It got a committee with 12 Republican votes and 10 Democrat votes against it.
I think it should have been done last Thursday and I started working on it the Monday before last Thursday and and Senator Tillis and Cornyn two Republicans that wouldn't vote for the lesser some changes made in the prep president's weaponization fund and some modifications of some agreement that he would not be audited and
And those were legitimate complaints.
And it just took, and quite frankly, when I got involved in talking to both sides, it was a common sense what Cornyn and Tillis wants.
Now, I don't know who intervened in the executive branch or from the White House.
I have no knowledge of that.
But it took 10 days to get this thing worked out.
And it shouldn't have taken ten days, because just common sense, what Tillis wanted and what Cornyn wanted was entirely legitimate.
And it should have been worked out so we got him out last Thursday.
Now we postponed the committee until today.
He's out now, but it's going to probably force us to stay in session on Saturday to get him approved as Attorney General.
Is that the priority to get the thing taken care of before the August break?
And even if that means staying late or is there a chance that there will be enough people who say we want to stick to the original schedule that they leave town and he's stuck in that acting role I
wish the latter were cruel, but that's not really that's not really how the United States kind of works.
It's almost that one person
could decide that this is going to be Saturday instead of Friday.
It's just that's the way the Senate works.
Now the House of Representatives doesn't work that way.
Let me ask you, finally, you've invited Jack Smith to testify at a date in September and I'm wondering if you have optimism that he will appear voluntarily or what you hope to learn in that oversight testimony.
Well, he's already accepted on September 22nd, so I'm sure he's anxious to tell his stories we We've been asked for the last eight months about when we're going to bring him before the committee But we had plenty of work to do to get the documents so we can make sure that he can't lie to us
And obviously, there have been a lot of things that have come up about phone records, et cetera.
And so this is a matter of being able to cross-check his sworn testimony versus the documents that the committee has assembled through its staff, correct?
Not only that, but the Democrats have been complaining for a long time that we haven't had him before the committee.
But I kept saying, we're having the committee before the committee.
when we are ready to get him to come before the committee, and that's not stalling.
That's just to make sure that we got all the information we need to make sure that this is a productive hearing with Jack Smith.
For your listeners, if they want to know what it is about Jack Smith, he was the guy that Biden chose during the Biden administration
to go after form then it was former president trump and put trump in prison and that was a whole motive and it all fell through because uh... i suppose you could say because the president was reelected but it was uh... just a witch hunt uh... and these documents are going to show all about that witch hunt because uh... it not only went after uh... after trump
But we've got documents that show it went on after probably a couple, three dozens of senators and representatives that were Republican, and it went after about 400 individuals and Republican organizations outside of the Congress of the United States.
That's coming up in September, but between now and then is the great Iowa State Fair.
How many days are you going to be there this year, do you think?
probably all day one day early in the in the state fair and then One other day for a short period of time for especially vat
Well, you've probably haven't missed one in quite a while.
Have you?
Well, I haven't missed the state fair since 1974 and I went to a few of them before that yeah
Senator, thank you so much for the extended conversation.
As always, safe travels back to the state, and we'll talk again next month, if not before.
God bless you.
Goodbye.
U.S.
Senator Charles Grassley called in yesterday afternoon from Washington, D.C., so you could hear the conversation now on this Wednesday edition of KXEL Live and local on News Talk 1540, KXEL, where Iowa comes to talk.
News Talk 1540 KXCL where Iowa comes to talk.
The arrival of August means back to school time.
It's a time of transitions and arguably the biggest transition is for those students who are moving on to college for the first time.
We're going to talk about that now with Nina Grant, who is Hawkeye Community College's Vice President of Student Affairs.
Thank you for being with us.
Thank you for having me.
I'm excited to be here.
So after students get comfortable in their new surroundings on campus, the routine starts to take hold.
But in those early days, those first days, usually end of August or beginning of September, what kinds of things do you do to try to remember that those first experiences students are having are way different than anything that they've had before in a school environment?
Oh, well, yes, I mean, one of the things that I do is I think about back when I was a new college student and experiencing this all for the first time.
And there's a lot of excitement, but sometimes there's a lot of fear of the unknown, especially if you are a college student.
that you might be the first one in your family to be going to college, for example, or maybe you've been out of school for a really long time, and you've made that decision to come back to college, and that can be somewhat intimidating as well.
And so I think back to those feelings that I had about being a little bit unsure of myself, and I tell college students all the time, you know, are you feeling a little bit of fear?
Are you feeling a little bit uncertain?
And more often than not, they say yes, and I say that's normal.
So you want to normalize that.
And we at colleges and universities and even here at Hawkeye, we do a very good job, I believe, of sharing a lot of information with our students.
But sometimes that can be overwhelming as well.
And so what we try to do is make sure that students at least know where to go.
Where can I go if I don't know who to ask that question or I don't know exactly what to ask or how to phrase it or what terminology to use because sometimes we use different terminology and we call it higher education speak, right?
So we want to make sure that students feel comfortable and connected to someone at the college that they can ask that question and be directed to find that support.
We do some things here at Hawkeye, especially for brand new students and when we're starting a new semester where we actually have people located in the various buildings as you walk in.
And they have a little table that says welcome, they have information, they have maps, and we do things like donuts with the deans at the beginning of the school year where we have an opportunity for students to come and grab a donut, connect with a dean on campus.
And again, it's just about making those connections.
I feel like if you have.
one person or one office that you feel comfortable that you can go to, you will be successful because you will be able to go there at any time and ask any question.
And if they don't know the answer, they'll direct you to the right person or the right office for support.
Let me focus on those
18, maybe 19 year old students who are transitioning directly out of high school and in those circumstances going to a place like Hawkeye, they're going to see a lot of kids in the same
very narrow age group as opposed to a four-year institution where you might have some older kids in their early 20s.
Fewer of those potentially at Hawkeye.
Is there any difference in the experience based on what you've seen as an administrator both at four-year institutions and at Hawkeye?
Is it any easier to step into that environment with more kids that are that 18, 19, maybe 20-year-old age?
Well, you know, here at Hawkeye, one of the things I absolutely love is that we do have such a wide variety of students.
We have what is called the traditionally age college students, you know, the 18 to 24 year olds.
Most of them are coming straight out of high school and many of them have a goal of transferring to a four year institution and they want that kind of traditional undergraduate experience.
So a lot of them will get involved with athletics here.
They will live close to campus in an environment where there are other students of the similar age and the some of the challenges that I see that particular population dealing with.
is oftentimes it's the first time that they're living away from home, living away from parents or other family members who have provided them support, guidance, made sure that they got up in the morning, made sure that they had a meal, made sure that their clothes were being washed, those kinds of things.
And so they are not only learning a landscape of how to be a college student, which is all new to them, they're also learning independence and they're learning how to be on their own, so to speak.
learning how to do things on their own.
We actually just last year we had a fair that we started to help students with skills, things like sewing on a button.
things like sorting your laundry.
You know, things like ironing, which I think hardly anyone does ironing anymore, but there might be a time where you need to iron something.
And so some of these skills that maybe aren't being taught as much or people don't think about, maybe that's something that you need to learn before you venture out on your own.
Certainly things like time management, all those kinds of things, taking care of your health and wellness on your own.
So those are.
different kinds of things than if we have an adult learner who maybe has tried education in the past, has worked in the world of work for a while, but wants to change their career, wants to upgrade, wants to come back to school.
They might be a parent, they might be a married individual with family, other responsibilities.
They're not learning to live life on their own because they've been there, they've done that.
They're just learning to
adjust and become a part of a college community again, get back into the role of learning as a student, those kinds of things.
So it is a different experience depending on your stage of life, the experiences that you've had.
And again, that's what I love about Hawkeye is we know that.
We know that we have a wide range of students and we do try to meet students where they are.
exactly at the stage of life that they are exactly at the addressing the needs that they might have.
And so we do offer different things, hoping that we touch on all of the needs of all of our students.
We're talking with Nina Grant who is Hawkeye Community College's Vice President of Student Affairs with classes beginning for fall here in the weeks ahead.
We're thinking of those first-time college students who are stepping into new surroundings here at the end of August and start of September.
You mentioned students who might be living away from home for the first time.
What from a college administrator's perspective?
Do you need to do differently to work with the commuter students who's still living at home versus those residential students?
And do you find that the challenges are any different for those students themselves?
Oh, yes, I would say that there are challenges that are different.
Again, when I was talking about students that are living away from home for the first time, you know, they're doing a lot of things that they've never done by themselves.
There are things that come up that they just hadn't thought of.
Oh, these things were being done for me or I was reminded to be doing these things.
And so again, it's gaining independence.
And I talked about some of the activities that we've incorporated related to that versus those that are still living at home.
It kind of depends on the home environment.
Do they have a supportive home environment where family members are super excited about them attending college or do they have an environment where
family members are maybe a little bit inconvenienced by the fact that they are taking time away from whatever it is in their home environment to focus on school.
So again, we have advisors here, student success advisors that we hope develop close relationships with students well enough to know them, know their specific needs, and then make sure that they get connected to a variety of resources here on campus.
offer events that we try to think that will be of interest to all students.
So for example, like we'll have fall fest at the beginning of the school year.
And that's an opportunity for students to engage with all kinds of resources and opportunities in our campus, regardless if they're a brand new student, you know, just out of straight out of high school coming to our campus, living away from home for the first time, or if they're, you know, living still in a home environment as a commuter campus student, or if they're an adult student.
All of those students have something that we think would be attractive to them, whether they're looking for a part time opportunity to work on campus.
We have community vendors that offer also internships, you know, all kinds of things.
Again, opportunities for them to get actively involved with student clubs and organizations.
We know that our adult students and our commuter students, sometimes that's a little bit more challenging.
So we do offer opportunities for students to engage virtually as well, especially even for some of the students that are mostly taking classes online or completely online.
So we really have had to adjust to how we offer opportunities for students to be engaged.
And so our student activities folks actually offer
things that are completely online simply to engage students and to make sure that they also feel welcome and a part of the campus and that they're connected and that they know someone here again so that if they have a question or something that they're dealing with that they feel comfortable to come forward and ask that question so that we can try to support them.
What sort of suggestions do you have for
working through the challenging workload, which is likely to be a heavier lift than most students have experienced academically prior to that first year in college.
Yes.
So some of the things that I say is, interestingly enough, I find that most students who, for lack of a better way of describing it, stay busy.
do better.
We all have the same amount of time you know we all and so it's a matter of managing your time and so some of the students that have a lot of free time you know I'll ask a student especially if they're struggling academically one of the first questions I ask is okay let's look at the time that you're spending in classes and then outside of classes to study or prepare or do assignments for the classes because you want to spend
you know, about three hours to every hour that you are in class.
And so you have to add all of that up and then see what time you have left.
You want to make sure that you're including time to sleep, to eat, you know, to shower, all those kinds of things.
And you do need some downtime, maybe some time to exercise, all those kinds of things that you need to do.
You want time to socialize.
And I have found that the students that schedule themselves, even for
some fun time you know through their through their schedule on a weekly basis usually are more successful because then their time is more planned out and you're not spending time scrolling on TikTok or you know
Obviously, you should carve out some time if that's something that you really enjoy, but you don't want that to take up so much time that it's a detriment to you to be able to be successful academically.
So it's a balance of finding those things.
Again, depending on the stage of life that a student is, they might have greater responsibilities.
They might have a job that they have to work around the job in order to get their studies in.
So we cater our advice and our support depending on the student's needs.
and how we can best help them.
We also have wonderful support systems here.
We have tutoring that's available for students that are struggling.
Academic advisors are certainly people that we feel would be beneficial if a student is having difficulty in managing time and help with study skills.
And so and faculty themselves are more than willing to help our students if they're struggling in a particular class to give them advice on how best to be successful in that particular course.
talking with Nina Grant, Vice President of Student Affairs at Hawkeye Community College about first-time students.
There'll be a lot of those at the college level here in the weeks ahead and we're a little short on time.
Let me just ask for your top tip or top maybe couple of pieces of advice for students and their parents during the next few weeks ahead of that first day on campus.
The thing that I would say is make sure that you're connecting to your campus.
You know, for here at Hawkeye, our classes begin August 19th.
So that's right around the corner, but it's not too late to register.
So take advantage of what the campus is providing for you.
We have instant enrollment days.
We have one coming up this Saturday.
So look online.
you know, make sure that you sign up for these things.
If not, we have a lot of walk-in availability.
We just want you to come, connect, and so that that way we can let you know about all the resources that we have available.
We even have extended office hours, that first week of class that goes on till 5.30 p.m.
so that students that might need help after, you know, the time that we typically close from August 17th to 20th, we're here a little bit later.
so that you can walk in, get help, get registered.
We can answer those questions for you.
So I just encourage you to take advantage of what the college has to offer you.
We here at Hawkeye were excited to welcome everyone back.
We want students to have that successful start.
Nina Grant is Hawkeye Community College's Vice President for Student Affairs.
Thanks for being with us ahead of the start of the academic calendar.
Thank you.
This is News Talk 1540 KXCL where Iowa comes to talk.