U.S. Senator Charles Grassley (R) made two stops in the Raccoon Valley Radio-listening area Thursday as part of his annual 99-county tour.

He first held a question and answer session with Guthrie County Hospital employees in the hospital’s Sneaker’s Cafe, in which Grassley discussed issues including prescription drug and insulin prices, federal relief from the derecho storm that affected much of Iowa, and absentee voting, otherwise known as voting by mail. Grassley says he votes via absentee, and as House Democrats are pushing to pass a funding bill for the U.S. Postal Service, Grassley says he would be in favor of including that in a coronavirus stimulus package, “I would be for maybe $5-10 billion in that but remember you don’t have to have that to keep the Postal Service functioning now, because there’s enough money to get the postal service to get it through August of next year so any money that we would put in there wouldn’t be needed until August of next year. So if it’s part of a political compromise, the answer is ‘Yes,’ If it was all by itself, I would say ‘No,’ but I don’t think it’s never going to have to reach that decision.”

Sources say postal service experts have been weighing when its current funding will run out in connection with shipping trends due to COVID-19. Grassley then toured the Forge in Jefferson and held a Q&A session with about 50 community members inside the new Greene County High School and Career Academy.