The town meeting snippet on YouTube is meant to vilify Sen. Chuck Grassley for his response to someone asking why average citizens can't get the same kind health insurance as members of Congress. "You can," Grassley responds. "Go work for the federal government."
The sound bite comes off as flippant -- not typically Grassley's style. The senator's work on the health care bill last week sounds a whole lot more like the Grassley we know. And should keep some of his critics at bay.
The Iowa Republican won passage for an amendment that will force Congress and congressional staffers to access health insurance through whatever plan Congress decides on. When Iowans suggested to Grassley that people ought to have the same option as their representatives, Grassley took that to heart. With Grassley's amendment, health insurance options for Congress would be available through the exchange created by the health care reform legislation under consideration by the Finance Committee.
"The more that Congress experiences the laws we pass, the better the
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That's the kind of approach we've come to expect from Grassley.
For 21st-century American families, it is hard enough to secure quality, affordable child care. They don't need government making it even tougher to balance family and professional responsibilities.
That's why a news item out of Michigan strikes a nerve. Lisa Snyder watched a bunch of neighborhood kids for the hour or so between when their parents had to leave for work and when the kids' school buses arrived. She did it voluntarily. She didn't collect a cent.
Yet that didn't matter to state officials, who, acting on a neighbor's complaint, ordered Snyder to knock it off; they said that, according to the law, she was operating an unlicensed day care.
It has come to this? Helping neighbors -- and not accepting payment for it -- is against the law?
Fortunately, many state officials -- from Gov. Jennifer Granholm on down -- see the silliness in this and will draft legislation to remedy the situation.
Don't be surprised if there are a few more Detroit Lions fans in Cascade these days. That would be a nod to Jared DeVries, a former Hawkeye football standout who is on the Detroit roster, although he is out for the season with an injury.
But around Cascade, Jared's three brothers are just as popular as he is -- and that's got nothing to do with football. Cascade will once again have a grocery store, thanks to the Brothers DeVries: Jared, Jay, Darian and Dusty. They plan to open a Brothers Market grocery store near the U.S. 151 bypass in Cascade.
That's a huge victory for Cascade officials and citizens, who have been without a store since 2006, and missed out last year when a request for a federal loan fell just short of approval.
A word of advice to Cascade area residents: Use it or lose it. Small towns across the country are facing this same struggle to keep their stores. It comes down to a simple equation: Stores have to make money to stay in business. Patronage will be the key to keeping Brothers Market.
Editorials reflect the consensus of the Telegraph Herald Editorial Board
