Newt Gingrich in The Huffington Post


On Energy & Oil: 1989: prevent global warming; 2012: unclear if warming real

Gingrich said it's unclear whether man-made global warming is real. "I believe we don't know," he told Fox News' Sean Hannity in an interview.

In 2008 Gingrich appeared in an ad with then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urging action on climate change. "Our country must take action to address climate change," he said in 2008. Gingrich recently said that the ad was "the dumbest thing I've done in recent years."

Earlier in his career, Gingrich co-sponsored a 1989 bill stating that climate change was "resulting from human activities."

    Findings in the Global Warming Prevention Act of 1989 (HR.1078): The Congress finds that:
  1. the Earth's atmosphere is being changed at an unprecedented rate by pollutants resulting from human activities
  2. global warming will accelerate the present sea level rise and thereby threaten to inundate low-lying coastal lands
  3. global warming imperils human health and well-being
  4. global warming will jeopardize prospects for sustainable development.
Source: Huffington Post, "Global Warming" Dec 1, 2011

On Government Reform: Allow unlimited campaign contributions to anybody

On the Supreme Court decision in McCutcheon v FEC striking down total limits on campaign donations, Gingrich said that even more deregulation is necessary to "overnight, equalize the middle class and the rich." Gingrich cited the 1976 decision Buckley v. Valeo, which equated limiting contributions with limiting freedom of expression. Gingrich said that "you've gone from that original decision to Citizens United, which said, in effect, that corporations could give and created super PACs. Now you've said they're unlimited." The 2010 Citizens United ruling allowed unlimited amounts of money via super PACs. The McCutcheon decision lets individuals give an unlimited total amount directly to parties and candidates, so long as they stay within limits for individual campaigns.

Gingrich added, "The next step is the one Justice Clarence Thomas cited--candidates should be allowed to take unlimited amounts of money from anybody. And you would, overnight, equalize the middle class and the rich."

Source: Huffington Post 2014 coverage of 2016 presidential hopefuls Apr 6, 2014

On Welfare & Poverty: Fight crisis of secularism with church-based charity

In a Gingrich White House, America would battle a "crisis of secularism" that has degraded the nation's moral character. Freedom of religion would survive, but the nation would need to reclaim its Christian heritage. Government wouldn't solve the problems of the poor, but perhaps community groups and churches could.

The themes are akin to many of those he struck as Speaker of the House. Then, his major proposal was a dramatic dismantling of government welfare. In its stead would come private charities, many of them faith-based, that he said did a better job of uplifting the neediest. It was public vs. private, secular vs. religious.

In part because of Gingrich's own efforts, the promotion of religious groups and faith-based services is now built into the highest levels of government. Gingrich led Congress to enact a major welfare reform law, which included a historic provision allowing faith-based groups to win government contracts to run social service programs.

Source: Jaweed Kaleem, Huffington Post, "Church, State" Dec 12, 2011

The above quotations are from Columns and news articles on the Huffington Post blog.
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