Sen. Grassley: Brace for Higher Food Prices and a ‘Very Bad 12 Months’




Thursday, 19 Jul 2012 11:39 AM
By Paul Scicchitano and Kathleen Walter











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As the worst drought in 25 years continues to spread across the already scorched Midwest, Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley warns Newsmax.TV that Americans should brace for higher food prices and a “very bad 12 months.”

“You’re on the brink of an economy catastrophe similar to what we had in the 1930s if we don’t get some rain. And you won’t really know that until September,” predicted Grassley in an exclusive interview on Wednesday.

Editor’s Note: Economist Unapologetically Calls Out Bernanke, Obama For Mishandling Economy. See What They Did.

In a wide-ranging interview, Grassley also said:

• The U.S. Food and Drug Administration employed “Stasi” tactics in spying on its own employees.
• Americans won’t know until after the election whether the Bush-era tax cuts will be extended.
• GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney should face no higher burden to release tax returns than any other presidential candidate.

Watch the exclusive interview here.


Grassley, the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee who also serves on the Finance, Agriculture, and Budget Committees, said that it won’t be just farmers in the Hawkeye State who are hurt by the severe drought, but Iowa’s entire economy.

“I think that it’s going to, in a few months, raise the retail price of food, but in my state I believe that you’re going to have less livestock when you have less corn — or the livestock that’s maintained it will be a higher cost of finishing that livestock for slaughter — and it’s going to be a very bad 12 months,” he predicted.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has already said the worsening Midwest drought will result in sharply higher crop prices though he refused to seek a reduction in corn-based ethanol production as hard-hit livestock producers called on the Obama administration to help ease corn prices by issuing an ethanol waiver.

“If we got rain this very minute — which we probably won’t — it would be less of a crisis, but it still is going to be at the best, very, very reduced production,” he explained. “It’s not quite as bad as Indiana or southern Illinois at this point, and maybe Missouri, but it is not good for our state, particularly right now when you are in what we call the pollination stage of the production of corn.”





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