Newt Gingrich on Principles & Values Former Republican Representative (GA-6) and Speaker of the House

OpEd: Contract agenda smart; but exaggerated scandal culture

Thinking about thinking about running; decision by October

A: I promise, if after the September 27th American Solutions workshop, I do decide to run, I will come back and be on “Meet the Press.”

Q: So you’re thinking about running?

A: Well, I’m thinking about thinking about running. But I won’t do anything at all about the possibility of running until after September 29th when we have our second workshop.

Q: So by October you should have a decision?

A: By October I’m confident that we’ll be chatting.

Creator as source of liberty is literally written in stone

[One can see in any tour of Washington DC] that our Creator is the source of American liberty--it is literally written into the rock, mortar, and marble of American history.

Media-academic-legal elite imposes radical secularist vision

This elite is especially hard at work in the courts and in the classrooms where it is attempting to overturn two centuries of American self-understanding of religious freedom and political liberty.

In the courts, we see a systematic effort by this elite to purge all religious expression from American public life. The ongoing attempt to remove the words “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance is only the most well-known of these mounting efforts.

Constitution says freedom OF religion, not FROM religion

The language clearly prohibits the establishment of an official national religion, while at the same time protecting the observance of religion in both private and public spaces. In fact, two of the principal authors of the First Amendment, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, who were also our third and fourth presidents, respectively, both attended church services in the Capitol building, the most public of American spaces. During Jefferson’s presidency, church services were also held in the Treasury building and the Supreme Court. Therefore, these Founding Fathers clearly saw no conflict in opposing the establishment of an official religion while protecting the freedom of religious expression in the public square.

Supreme Court hostile to religion, but building based on it

Throughout history, decisions of the Supreme Court have recognized that we are a religious nation. For example, in the 1952 case Zorach vs. Clauson, the court upheld a statute that allowed students to be released from school to attend religious classes.

The most striking religious imagery at the Supreme Court building is that of Moses with the Ten Commandments. Affirming the Judeo-Christian roots of our legal system, they can be found in several places: at the center of the sculpture over the east portico of the building, inside the actual courtroom, and finally, engraved over the chair of the Chief Justice, and on the bronze doors of the Supreme Court itself. There is also a sculpted marble depiction of Mohammad on the wall.

Reform traditional instruments of gov’t for 21st century

Only a grassroots citizens’ movement can insist on the level of change that is needed for our children and grandchildren to have a successful future. Such a citizens’ movement would have to be focused on goals rather than on interest groups. The goals define the America we want our children and grandchildren to have. To achieve this future we will:

1. Defend America and our allies from those who would destroy us.
2. Transform the Social Security system into personal savings accounts.
3. Recenter on the Creator from Whom all our liberties come.
4. Establish patriotic education for our children and patriotic immigration for new Americans.

Focus on 5 major challenges for the 21st century

1. Securing America & its Allies by Defeating America’s Enemies, especially the Irreconcilable Wing of Islam & the rogue dictatorships that empower them.
2. Defending God in the Public SquareThere is no attack on American culture more deadly & more historically dishonest than the unending war against God in America’s public life.
3. Protecting American CivilizationWe should not worry about people who want to come to the US to work hard & become Americans. What should worry us is ensuring that new immigrants learn to be American.
4. Winning in a Global EconomyThe challenge of economi competition from China & India will require transformations in litigation, education, taxation, environmental & health policies.
5. Promoting Active Healthy Aging[We need to reform the] Medicare & Social Security systems for the 21st Century.

1998: Proceeded with unpopular impeachment "because we can"

Later in November, Erskine Bowles had a very different conversation: Newt told Erskine that they were going to go forward with the impeachment despite the election results and the fact that many moderate Republicans didn't want to vote for it. When Erskine asked Newt why they would proceed with impeachment instead of other possible remedies such as censure or reprimand, the Speaker replied, "Because we can."

The right-wing Republicans who controlled the House believed that they had now paid for impeachment so they should just go on and do it before the new Congress came in. The right-wingers in the House caucus were seething over their defeat. Now they were going to seize back control of the Republican agenda through impeachment.

3 out of 14 planks of Contract With America passed by 1996

The Republicans finally were being held accountable for both the budget impasse and the shutdowns, and the drop in their approval ratings led to a fracturing of the party's united front. By January, Sen. Bob Dole, likely looking ahead to the launch of his presidential campaign, started talking compromise. Gingrich's strategy of "playing chicken" with Bill had failed, and I felt great relief that we could reopen the government and get workers back on the payroll now that Bill had prevailed.

As Congress opened on Jan. 3, 1996, only three minor pieces of the Gingrich Contract had been signed into law. Bill had sustained 11 vetoes. He had managed to stave off disastrous cuts to Medicare and to save programs like AmeriCorps and Legal Aid services

Politics is war without blood

Polls are biased left; GOP wins on the issues

Source: Lessons Learned the Hard Way, by Newt Gingrich, p. 73-75 Jul 2, 1998

GOP represents people, but Dems communicate better

They need to believe that we understand how people feel. This is sometimes an uncomfortable thing for Republicans to make convincing. Often we tend to talk as if we are a group of managers analyzing some problem in a boardroom. Democrats, on the other hand, whatever their other shortcomings, have a passion for both power and people and instinctively know how to focus in on both. You might say that they on the whole come on like a party of lawyers making an appeal to a blue-collar jury, while Republicans come on like a party of managers making an appeal to a board of directors. Guess who is more successful at mass communication?

Baby Boomers becoming Republicans while Dems become outdated

Most of these trends are barel noted in the media while they are happening, with the result that the view of the world that dominates in Washington and New York and Cambridge Mass, is almost 180 degrees different from the view of the world of everyday practical political leaders.

Liberals exploit weakness; conservatives offer strength

Six challenges for a prosperous, free, & safe America

Let me outline the six major changes that I believe are necessary to leave our children with an America that is prosperous, free, and safe:
1. We must reassert and renew American civilization. Until we re-establish a legitimate moral-cultural standard, our civilization is at risk.
2. We must accelerate America’s entry into the Third Wave Information Age. Second only to renewing our civilization is making the intellectual investment necessary to understand these changes and harness them to our lasting advantage.
3. We must rethink our competition in the world market. We want our labor to add the highest value so that we can be the most effective competitor on earth.
4. We must replace the welfare state with an opportunity society.
5. We must replace our centralized, micro-managed, Washington-based bureaucracy with a dramatically decentralized system more appropriate to a continent-wide country.
6. We musty be honest about the cost of government programs and balance the federal budget.

Culture of irresponsibility began in 1965

Our civilization is a shared opportunity to pursue happiness

We have gone from being a strong, self-reliant, vigorous society to a pessimistic one that celebrates soreheads and losers jealous of others’ successes. I came out of my two years of reviewing American history convinced that our first need is to rediscover the values we have lost. In my reading, I found five basic principles that I believe form the heart of our civilization:
1. The common understanding we share about who we are and how we came to be
2. The ethic of individual responsibility
3. The spirit of entrepreneurial free enterprise
4. The spirit of invention and discovery
5. Pragmatism and the concern for craft and excellence.

Contract with America: 10 bills in 1st 100 days of Congress.

As Republican Members of the House of Representatives and as citizens seeking to join that body, we propose not just to change its policies, but to restore the bounds of trust between the people and their elected representatives. That is why, in this era of official evasion and posturing, we offer instead a detailed agenda for national renewal, a written commitment with no fine print.

Within the first hundred days of the 104th Congress, we shall bring to the House Floor the following bills, each to be given a full and open debate, each to be given a clear and fair vote, and each to be immediately available this day for public inspection and scrutiny:
1. The Fiscal Responsibility Act: Balanced budget amendment & line item veto
2. The Taking Back Our Streets Act: More prisons, more enforcement, more death penalty
3. The Personal Responsibility Act: Limit welfare to 2 years & cut welfare spending
4. The Families Reinforcement Act: Use tax code to foster families
5. The American Dream Restoration Act: Repeal marriage tax; cut middle class taxes
6. The National Security Restoration Act: No US troops under UN command; more defense spending
7. The Senior Citizens Fairness Act: Reduce taxes on Social Security earnings
8. The Job Creation and Wage Enhancement Act: Incentives to small businesses
9. The Common Sense Legal Reforms Act: Limit punitive damages
10. The Citizen Legislature Act: Term limits on Congress