Sen. Chuck Grassley (R), Chairman of the Senate Finance Commitee, has called for the President to give up on the scripted town hall meeting format and hold a real dialog with the American people on Social Security. Read on for more...
On Senator Grassley's website, you can listen to his new conference of February 16, 2005. The file is posted on this page:
http://grassley.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Radio.Home
The file is called "grassleyNewsConf2-16.mp3" on Feb 16th.
At the 22:43 mark a reporter asks about the scripted "town hall" meetings the president has been holding around the country. Here's the transcript:
Question: Talking about this campaign that the president has going on around the country to talk up the need for personal accounts; a lot of these events, including the one today in New Hampshire, only include people who already support personal accounts. I was just looking at the background information. Everybody who's there agrees with him. Is that really effective?
Senator Grasssley: No.
Question: Or should there be forums in which people get to ask questions, and might not agree?
Senator Grassley: And so let me tell you what I've suggested to the White House through Al Hubbard. You know who he is. I've suggested that the president needs a forum, that I call "senior to senior". Get seniors from college in the audience--maybe you could even separate 'em by young people and by senior citizens--senior to senior discussion of this with the president leading the discussion. And at that point get a clear-cut picture of how different segments of the population see it.
Question: And not have it scripted? Have people who might have differing opinions?
Senator Grassley: Yeah.
Grassley has repeatedly said that he doesn't think that the private accounts are going to pass the Congress unless President Bush can change the minds of the American people within 90 days after the State of the Union speech. Now, almost a month after SOTU, the senator has said that the scripted events are not working.