Newt Gingrich in Newt!, by Dick Williams
On Abortion:
Most Americans are pro-choice and anti-abortion
At a conference in Atlanta in April, 1995, Gingrich was asked about abortion. "I believe most Americans are pro-choice and anti-abortion." A murmur ran through the mostly conservative audience.
He quieted it by insisting on putting values first in lawmaking and suggesting that alternatives to abortion such as adoption must be promoted and their costs eased. Still, the answer sounded to many like President Clinton's
1992 convention speech at which he said abortions should be "safe, legal, and rare."Gingrich is opposed to abortion but does not believe the nation is ready to enact a constitutional ban. In the first three months of 1995, while the Contract With
America was being debated, he angered some Republican congressmen by detouring them from anti-abortion amendments to bills and by putting aside their arguments that a welfare reform package might lead to an increase in abortions.
Source: Newt!, by Dick Williams, p.182
Jun 1, 1995
On Civil Rights:
1968: Led college protest over suppressing racy newspaper
Those who seek hypocrisy in Gingrich are quick to note that he led protests when he was a graduate student at Tulane U. in 1968. But his protests were over the suppression of racy material in a student newspaper. He was arguing a constitutional point,
even if his tactics were those of the counterculture he is quick to demean. Classmates of time told interviewers that Gingrich was a 1950s sort of man, wearing a jacket and tie to class when dress codes everywhere were yielding to blue jeans and T-shirts
Source: Newt!, by Dick Williams, p. 23
Jun 1, 1995
On Civil Rights:
America is multi-ethnic but not multi-cultural
Gingrich's views on race were shaped by his rearing in the culture of the military meritocracy [including military bases abroad]. "I was in an integrated society," he recalled in an interview in the spring of
1995."I knew kids who were black. We formed friendships; we were in the same classes; we were on the same teams. We routinely interacted on a level where you didn't think about it. And they were Americans. In
Europe the distinction was between us and not us. And they were us."His views also are grounded in his historical view: e pluribus unum, or out of many, one. To use his phrase, "American civilization is diverse and multiethnic, but it
is one civilization." Newt finds common ground with those who argue that in diversity there is strength--but only to a point. We are multiethnic, but we are not multicultural.
Source: Newt!, by Dick Williams, p. 28
Jun 1, 1995
On Civil Rights:
Affirmative action OK individually, but not by group
In 1995, a California referendum [was proposed to] eliminate affirmative action programs in state and local government. When Gingrich was asked about the issue at his regular daily press conference, he was consistent."It is my belief," he said, "that
affirmative action programs, if done for individuals, are good, and if done by some group distinction, are bad. Because it is antithetical to the American dream to measure people by the genetic pattern of their great-grandmothers. So, I'm very interested
in rewriting the affirmative action programs so that they allow individuals to get help whether they are Appalachian white or blacks from Atlanta. But I think it ought to be based on the fact that you individually have worked hard and are trying to rise
and that you come out of a background of poverty and a background of cultural need."
A reporter noted that some beneficiaries of government preferences have been subjected to discrimination for centuries. "That's been true of virtually every American."
Source: Newt!, by Dick Williams, p. 31
Jun 1, 1995
On Civil Rights:
Half-sister, a lesbian lobbyist: "Newt promotes tolerance"
When [Newt's sister] Candace made the rounds of Capitol Hill in early 1995 as a lesbian lobbying on behalf of the homosexual rights organizations, the Human Rights Campaign Fund, her meeting with Newt became a major news story. Brother and sister hugged
and kissed, and Candace praised Newt for working hard to achieve a goal.The Speaker never has made much of an issue of homosexuality except to oppose its promotion in schools. In an interview with a homosexual newspaper in 1994, Gingrich said, "I think
our position should be toleration. It should not be promotion and it should not be condemnation."
His half-sister disagreed, saying "A leaky faucet, a barking dog--those are the things you tolerate. While Newt is promoting tolerance, his colleagues are
preparing anti-gay legislation."
Gingrich was unpersuaded, saying, "I am not prepared to establish a federal law that allows you to sue your employer if you end up not having a job because of a disagreement that involves your personal behavior."
Source: Newt!, by Dick Williams, p. 68
Jun 1, 1995
On Corporations:
Bureaucracy & litigation are enemies of entrepreneurship
To create inner-city jobs, Gingrich says that the American notion of entrepreneurial free enterprise must be grafted back into the cities. He uses the word "entrepreneur" in its original sense: to undertake. To try something. He doesn't urge everyone to
start a business, but to begin each day with a plan, an undertaking. Gingrich pinpoints 5 enemies of entrepreneurship: bureaucracy, credentialing, taxation, litigation, and regulation. Any efforts to save the cities must start there. The bureaucracies
stop welfare recipients from earning extra money. They stop enterprise by demanding credentials, and they create red tape that daunts most people. Individuals must be free to manage themselves.
It is here that Gingrich's arguments are the weakest, for
many inner-city children aren't near the kinds of businesses that can provide even an entry to the work force. There is hope but no proof that reining in bureaucrats, reforming tax code, and cutting through red tape will be enough to spur development.
Source: Newt!, by Dick Williams, p. 58
Jun 1, 1995
On Crime:
Convert decommissioned military bases into prisons
Gingrich favors tenant ownership of public housing. But he goes further. He would end public housing. He would create enterprise zones with tax breaks for those who create jobs. He would crack down on deadbeat dads.
He would make it tough on criminals by raising the odds that will get caught committing a crime. As for prisons, any decommissioned military base would be sufficient to pick up the slack.
Source: Newt!, by Dick Williams, p. 56
Jun 1, 1995
On Drugs:
Admitted to smoking marijuana, coming of age in 1960s
It has been popular to conjure up in just how many ways Newt Gingrich is like Bill Clinton. Superficially they share much. Both came of age around the same time--the '60s, the Vietnam era.
Each owns a vintage '60s Mustang. Each admitted to smoking marijuana and neither served in the military. Each is an indefatigable politician who has come back from crushing defeat.
Source: Newt!, by Dick Williams, p. 19
Jun 1, 1995
On Education:
Voucherize inner-city programs from schools to groceries
In a speech in March, 1995, to business leaders in suburban Atlanta, Gingrich noted that the public school system in the District of Columbia spends $9,600 a year per pupil, nearly double the national average. He suggested that for such a high level of
spending, each could have private tutors and personal transportation to school--plus lunch. He advocates vouchers to parents so they can choose the schools, public or private, their children will attend."I think we ought to voucherize every program in
the inner city with cash payments to parents allowing them to decide where and what to purchase, be it an elementary school, health care, or groceries." Some in his audience thought he was exaggerating to make a point. In a later interview, he was willing
to go even further. "Suppose you need to get children away from failed teachers. What if we called on the home-schoolers in Maryland and Virginia to come to D.C. for a massive home schooling program, teaching parents how to teach their children."
Source: Newt!, by Dick Williams, p. 51-52
Jun 1, 1995
On Education:
1984: All-night Congressional vigil on school prayer vote
To support Reagan in his efforts to pass legislation permitting school prayer, Gingrich held an all-night vigil session on the subject. It got publicity for their cause, but Democrats still refused to allow votes on school prayer. Gingrich had seen
Reagan's six initiatives for the 1984 Congress bottled up by Democrats. One of them was the equal access bill, a measure allowing religious and other groups from outside school systems to use high-school facilities. It was a fallback from school prayer.
Source: Newt!, by Dick Williams, p.105
Jun 1, 1995
On Education:
Voluntary school prayer creates bond between you and Creator
There's a reason why voluntary school prayer mattered, and the reason goes far from the concept of being endowed by our Creator and getting authority from a Supreme Being.I had a very bright student in the class who said, "Do you really think voluntary
school prayer matters that much? Why does it matter? You really think 30 seconds matter?" And I suddenly realized the reason it matters is it establishes at the beginning of the day the concept of a hierarchy. That the teacher is an intermediary between
the Creator who is endowing is with our unalienable rights and us.
If there is a Creator and your rights are endowed by the Creator, then there is a direct bond between you and the Creator. Now this is not a violation of church and state. They're not
teaching you to be a Catholic or to be Jewish or Muslim or Baptist. They're teaching you basic principles of morality and basic principles of relating to personal strength as an act of faith in a Creator.
Source: Newt!, by Dick Williams, p.172-173
Jun 1, 1995
On Education:
1963 Supreme Court school prayer ban was just wrong
In Oct. 1994, Gingrich laid out the case for a [school prayer] constitutional amendment. He outlined a specific two-track strategy. The first: a bill to withdraw the issue of school prayer from court jurisdiction, a routine tactic in Congress.
The second: a constitutional amendment to permit voluntary prayer.In 1963, the Supreme Court banned organized school prayer. "Why was the 1963 decision wrong? It was wrong as law because it misread the Constitution. I'm not a lawyer, but
I am a historian. As an historian, I will just tell you flatly the meaning of the Constitution was simple. It was not to drive religion out of public life. It was to ensure that there would be no organized religion subsidized directly by the state and
imposed on others. They're just wrong & they ought to say that."
The Oct. 1994 lecture on school prayer is one of Gingrich's most powerful speeches. I suspect most listeners heard it as a cry of faith, in God, and in a Republic built on the idea of God
Source: Newt!, by Dick Williams, p.180-181
Jun 1, 1995
On Environment:
Early 1980s: co-sponsored Endangered Species Act
In the early 1980s, Gingrich took some positions that separated him from most of the right wing. He voted for the Alaska Lands Act. He cosponsored the Endangered Species Act, and the Clean Air Act. Most of his early supporters from the environmental
movement long ago gave up on him, but among Republicans, he remains a bona fide conservationist. Newt argues that he has been true to his original beliefs, while the "greens" have moved in a radical direction, toward the taking of private property without
adequate compensation. Gingrich made plain in a recent interview: "We're going to try to write [an Endangered Species Act] that's economically rational and that protects species. The problem now is that the environmental movement is dominated by
lawyers and bureaucrats, and it's a front for anti-free-enterprisers who use protecting species as a device to stop development. The question is, do you spend $300 million to protect one species or do you spend that money to protect 30 species?"
Source: Newt!, by Dick Williams, p.102
Jun 1, 1995
On Families & Children:
Marriage penalty costs low-income couples $4,600 per year
Americans, Gingrich believes, are not rule-dominated; they are incentive-dominated. Because of this, today's welfare incentives are backwards in a democratic, entrepreneurial society.His favorite example: the tax code's marriage penalty, or that part
that affects lower-income citizens. Gingrich used the example of a man earning $11,000 a year who wanted to marry a woman earning the same amount. Because each taxpayer would be eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit, a marriage ceremony and license
would cost the couple $4,000 a year.
"And then you have politicians," Gingrich says, "who say, 'Gee, we have too many births out of wedlock.' And your government wants to encourage you to get married by taking from you 25% of your income?"
Gingrich doesn't blame individuals for socially damaging behavior. His target is the system that fosters it. He wants instead a system that guides citizens to the proper choices.
Source: Newt!, by Dick Williams, p. 43
Jun 1, 1995
On Families & Children:
1979: his marriage collapsed because "all humans sin"
When Newt went to Washington in 1979, [his first wife] Jackie went with him. But she didn't stay long. She had been diagnosed with uterine cancer the year before and was undergoing treatment. The couple tried counseling, but separated. Gingrich has said
they discussed a divorce for 11 years, but Jackie insisted on trying to save the marriage.Over the years, a body of lore has been compiled about the marriage and what broke it: Gingrich is said to have told a friend that Jackie wasn't young enough or
pretty enough to be the wife of a president. He denies those comments.
When asked why his marriage ended, Gingrich never has denied that he broke his marriage vows: He confirmed in many forums, "I'm human, and all human beings sin."
The fires were
fueled in 1981, when just a few months after his divorce, Gingrich married Marianne Ginther. She was 15 years younger than Jackie. A body of stories developed that is still circulating today concerning alleged affairs with unnamed women.
Source: Newt!, by Dick Williams, p. 94-95
Jun 1, 1995
On Foreign Policy:
American Exceptionalism: uniquely far-reaching individualism
American Exceptionalism starts with the idea of a uniquely insistent and far-reaching individualism. It's a view of the individual person which gives unprecedented weight to his or her choices, interests, and claims.I think this is at the core of the
American idea, at the core of the American sense of who we are. That we are uniquely individuals, and that each person is endowed by their Creator, every man, every woman, every child, is endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights.
That's a very important concept. They cannot be alienated from you, they're yours, they're bound to you, and therefore, the system has to be built around your rights unless you voluntarily loan some of them to the state.
Notice how different that is from all historic experiences where the government, the king, or the dictator is empowered by God or by history in the Marxist model."
Source: Newt!, by Dick Williams, p. 15
Jun 1, 1995
On Free Trade:
Mutual trade: neither free trade nor protectionism
Gingrich offered a six-point prescription:- Base the welfare system on work
- expand day care--private and public--to accommodate welfare mothers
- make "mutual trade"--neither free trade nor protectionism--the country's goal
- privatize many
government services; starting with NASA
- reform the Pentagon, with a move away from all-volunteer standing forces to more emphasis on reserves and the National Guard; and
- curb cost-of-living increases in social programs such as Social Security.
Source: Newt!, by Dick Williams, p.108
Jun 1, 1995
On Government Reform:
Wrote "Contract with America" as conservative platform
Political parties, cobbling together ideas from hundreds of activists, construct platforms for their national conventions every four years. Gingrich essentially wrote his own, the Contract with America, a compilation of conservative Republican ideas
molded into 10 pieces of legislation. The Contract carried with it the promise that each of its items would be brought to a vote within the first 100 days of the 104th Congress. The Contract With America propelled the Republicans to victory and
Gingrich into the Speaker's office, but it was, after all, just another political platform. The Contract by itself still would be gathering dust were it not for the political machine that marketed it through 230 winning candidates. In 1994, Gingrich
supplied not only the language of victory, he wrote the description of the problem, commissioned the solutions, recruited the candidates, and campaigned until hoarse from them. For the Republican candidate in need of support, Gingrich was hard to avoid.
Source: Newt!, by Dick Williams, p. 4-5
Jun 1, 1995
On Health Care:
Too much reform puts 1/7 of US economy at risk
Gingrich immediately joined the opposition to the president's first legislative priority--health care reform. Unbeknownst to most Georgia voters, Gingrich had been working on health care issues for years. Where some Republicans were overwhelmed by
Hillary Rodham Clinton's detailed knowledge of the work of her secret health care task force, Gingrich had been studying the issue longer. Gingrich met with Hillary in 1984 We had a good discussion," said the Speaker-to-be. "I begged her not to go for
the whole reform package that puts at risk 1/7 of the American economy. My advice was to go for four small reforms to see what worked. Try ensuring portability of health insurance when people change jobs. See that preexisting conditions are covered.
Take care of malpractice and tort reform. Create medical savings accounts. That sort of thing. If she tried to do it all, she would fail."
And fail she did, in dramatic fashion a few months later, just before the historic elections to come.
Source: Newt!, by Dick Williams, p.145
Jun 1, 1995
On Homeland Security:
Wishes he volunteered for Vietnam; exempt due to young kids
By 1966, Vietnam draft calls were increasing, but Newt and Jackie had two young daughters. They earned him a deferment from the draft, but he of course had the option to volunteer. Newt supported the war effort, and not simply because Bob
Gingrich, his step-father, was serving in counterguerilla operations in Vietnam. But, he said once, it would have been irrational for him to volunteer and leave two young daughters behind.Over the years, I've heard Newt
Gingrich say many times that he wishes he had volunteered. Whatever his feelings were in the middle of the 1960s--and if he was like most young men in his age group they changed more than once--Gingrich never was at risk of being inducted.
The accusations of draft-dodging by his political foes ring hollow. And comparisons with Bill Clinton, who was consumed by finding the least politically damaging way to avoid service, are an exercise in apples and oranges.
Source: Newt!, by Dick Williams, p. 78-79
Jun 1, 1995
On Homeland Security:
Co-founded Military Reform Caucus as "cheap hawk solution"
Gingrich went around the House leadership to co-found the Military Reform Caucus, at a time when the huge Reagan defense buildup was under assault. Pentagon procurement scandals were prompting stories about $600 ashtrays and $1,200 toilet seats.
Gingrich developed the "cheap hawk solution": the nuclear age required a quick-response, mobile military; and such a force could be as effective as the Navy, with its expensive aircraft carriers, and the Army, with its huge, heavily armed divisions.
Gingrich allied himself with the analysts who were developing the fast-attack tenets of maneuver warfare called the AirLand Battle Doctrine. The "cheap hawk solution" became an arrow in the Republican quiver, as it staved off Democratic attempts to cut
the Pentagon budget. "Don't try to reform the current system," he said of Pentagon procurement in early 1995. "It is hopeless. It is impossible." The Speaker views many current Pentagon policies as part of the antiquated industrial age.
Source: Newt!, by Dick Williams, p.101
Jun 1, 1995
On Homeland Security:
Women not suitable for combat due to infections
Shortly after becoming Speaker, Gingrich told his college class that women are not suitable for combat because after 30 days in the ditch they are susceptible to infections. It became the firestorm of the week. His parallel comment that men were born to
hunt giraffes was turned into high comedy. But students in his class knew he was exaggerating about male and female traits to make a point: Women have skills that make them better suited for many military specialties other than combat.
Amid the coverage of the comments, it was next to impossible to find a news story on the effects of extended field duty on female combatants. And it was impossible not to hear
Rep. Pat Schroeder lampooning him by suggesting that no men she knew had a desire to hunt giraffes.
"Occasionally you get taken grotesquely out of context, but that's fine," Gingrich said. "It is part of the process of getting the message out."
Source: Newt!, by Dick Williams, p.162
Jun 1, 1995
On Immigration:
Irish and Chinese immigrants overcame bigotry; so can blacks
It is fashionable for African-Americans to argue that forced immigration in the form of slavery hardly is comparable to immigration. Gingrich instead uses the lessons of history to argue that time and change heal wounds. The problems that so anger black
Americans, he insists, came to be after 1965--the year of the Voting Rights Act."From 1607 until 1965 you have certain long sweeps that are more and more positive. We go from slavery to segregation to integration. We go from empowering wealthy white
males to eliminating the poll tax and then giving women the vote, then making sure everybody can vote. We go from almost the very beginning to acquire property. Free blacks as early as the 1740s could acquire property."
Gingrich goes on to enumerate
America's past hostility toward the Irish, Southern Europeans, and the Chinese. These immigrants' ability to overcome bigotry and succeed while so many black Americans languish is the prelude to the congressman's call for dismantling the welfare system.
Source: Newt!, by Dick Williams, p. 30
Jun 1, 1995
On Immigration:
1989: Let Tiananmen students overstay visas
Gingrich's first skirmish was over foreign policy--Bush's veto of a bill that would have allowed Chinese students to stay in the US after their visas expired. The brutal suppression of protesters in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 1989 had been seen across
America. Chinese students' lives were put at risk as soon as they returned home. Supported by Gingrich, Republicans joined Democrats in attempting to override the veto, and Bush administration officials began to be wary of the gadfly from Georgia.
Source: Newt!, by Dick Williams, p.124
Jun 1, 1995
On Principles & Values:
Search for progress in successful lessons of the past
Gingrich has an underlying philosophy that drives him to search for progress in the successful lessons of the past. He reinforces this philosophy with the discipline required of an academic. To him, words have meaning and education is forever.
The historian in him demands voluminous reading. He preaches with enthusiasm about the need to consult biography if one is to learn how to do something.
I was surprised to hear Gingrich entreat me to read Gore Vidal's Lincoln, a book congressman believes is indispensable in describing perseverance in defeat and successful management of recalcitrant underlings.
Few, indeed, are the conversations with him in which a book or two isn't recommended.
Source: Newt!, by Dick Williams, p. 10
Jun 1, 1995
On Principles & Values:
1972: State chair for CREEP, committee to re-elect Nixon
His first political notice came with his support in 1968 of Gov. Nelson Rockefeller over the more plebian Nixon. Gingrich then was in graduate school and maneuvered to make himself Louisiana chairman for Rockefeller. The NY governor's views on race
relations and the environment played a large part in Gingrich's choice.But the pragmatic graduate student, in 1972, went from opposition to Nixon to being state chairman for the CREEP, the committee to reelect Nixon.
Source: Newt!, by Dick Williams, p. 24
Jun 1, 1995
On Principles & Values:
Parents married only a few months; named after stepfather
Kathleen Gingrich [Newt's mother] described her brief marriage in words that could have been lifted straight from a Tammy Wynette song. "We were married on a Saturday and I left him on a Tuesday. I got Newtie in those three days."
The baby born June 17, 1943, was named Newton Leroy McPherson. His mother was just 17. His father, Newton McPherson, was away in the Navy, soon to be sued for divorce by Kathleen.
Newton and Kit, as she was known, had been married when she was just 16
year that her father was killed in a car accident. Newton was 19 and a mechanic. Kit Gingrich likes the story of how she left Newton three days after her wedding, but in fact, it was several months. Newton came home after a night of carousing. He and
Kit quarreled, Newton struck her, and Kit fled to her mother's house, which would be Newt's boyhood home.
When Newt was three years old, Kit married a young Army veteran, Bob Gingrich. Newt's sister was Candace Gingrich, 23 years Newt's junior.
Source: Newt!, by Dick Williams, p. 66-67
Jun 1, 1995
On Principles & Values:
1960: first political activism: student volunteer for Nixon
In high school, Gingrich fit that modern play on words, radical geek. A classmate remembers him as being the smartest around, but popular and fun. Gingrich's high school days were notable for three things:
politics, the closest friendship of his life, and a very well kept secret.His political activism began in March, 1960, his junior year at Baker High, when he volunteered in the presidential campaign of Richard Nixon.
Gingrich and his classmate and closest friend, Jim Tilton, dreamed of creating a Republican majority. The classmate remembers that Newt's goal was to be the first Republican governor in Georgia since
Reconstruction and then to use that prominence to vault him into presidential politics.
He volunteered for the Nixon campaign and had his first taste of political defeat. Newt was shaken after Nixon's loss. He took it hard.
Source: Newt!, by Dick Williams, p. 74-75
Jun 1, 1995
On Principles & Values:
Dated his geometry teacher in high-school; married her later
Throughout that senior year, Newt was keeping a major secret, going off alone to make hushed phone calls that were the subject of speculation among his friends. He was dating Jackie Battley, his 24-year-old geometry teacher.
The couple was married in a bittersweet ceremony after his freshman year. Bob Gingrich refused to attend, believing the boy too young and the 7-year age difference too great.
Kit Gingrich, who carried the memory of her short first marriage, agreed with her husband. The Gingrich sisters stayed at home as well."If you live your life hostage to everybody else's decisions," he told the
Washington Post years later, "you either have to live a very narrow life or you have to spend a lot of time in pain. I hoped my mother would come..I never held it against her. I never held it against him."
Source: Newt!, by Dick Williams, p. 75-76
Jun 1, 1995
On Principles & Values:
Authored Conservative Opportunity Society manifesto
Some trace the idea for the Conservative Opportunity Society to a meeting Gingrich had in 1982 with former President Nixon about the need for a more idea-oriented party."Marianne and I went to see Dick Nixon late in 1982," Gingrich told me. "He
said, 'You can't change the House yourself. You have to go back and form a group.' You could say that the idea for the COS came from Nixon. He was responsible for a great deal of political change in this country."
The idea had been germinating well
before Nixon offered his advice. Gingrich had spent four years seeing his fellow Republicans in the House react instead of act. The group met weekly and planned.
Those who argue that Gingrich in inconsistent or a slave to pollsters and public opinion
would note the 1983 Conservative Opportunity Society manifesto. As outlined in a conference in Baltimore to signal the arrival of the COS, it is remarkable for its consistency with 1995's Renewing American Civilization lectures.
Source: Newt!, by Dick Williams, p. 98-100
Jun 1, 1995
On Principles & Values:
Cooperate on Contract, but no compromise
After the Contract with America election, Gingrich said], "I want to draw a distinction between two worlds, because we're going to get into a lot of confusion at the vision level about these two words. I am very prepared to cooperate with the Clinton
administration. I am not prepared to compromise. The two words are very different."At the end of the opening day, we will introduce the 10 bills we described in the Contract. We will read the Contract as the opening item of business every day for the
first 100 days, and at the end, the American people will be able to say they saw a group of people who actually said what they were going to do and kept their word.
"We have an enormous amount of work to do. All I can promise you in the side of the
House of Republicans is that we're going to be open to working with everyone, that we will cooperate with anyone, and we will compromise with no one, and that 's the base of where we're going and that what we believe this election is all about."
Source: Newt!, by Dick Williams, p.118-121
Jun 1, 1995
On Principles & Values:
Many newspaper editorial boards contain socialists
The Speaker roiled the waters when he told a group of business leaders that many newspaper editorial boards contain socialists. But isn't it possible--even likely--that the Washington Post's editorial board includes a person who endorses a guaranteed
annual income, or share-the-wealth schemes, or nationalizing some industries?To call someone socialist is not necessarily to questions that person's patriotism. In the press reaction to the socialist tag was the suggestion that somehow
Gingrich was reviving McCarthyism. It is a case of the offended protesting too much. Socialism has a lengthy American tradition, even if it is now on the wane. After all, President Clinton's Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich, proudly called himself a
democratic socialist in the days after his Rhodes scholarship. As Gingrich said, "I'd be glad to get you a collection of editorials that only make senses if people believe that government's good and the free market is bad."
Source: Newt!, by Dick Williams, p.158-159
Jun 1, 1995
On Principles & Values:
Four House Ethics complaints against "Newt Inc." GOPAC
Gingrich has raised $35 million through GOPAC. "Newt Inc." is what more than one publication has called his organizations. The ethics complaints are four:- Gingrich's college course constituted a political activity disguised as an academic endeavor
and was improperly financed
- He abused his office by allowing an auction for a book won by a publisher with business before Congress
- He accepted free time on cable TV for his lectures
- He plugged the toll-free phone number through which to order
his Renewing American Civilization lecture tapes while he was speaking on the House floor.
Even people close to the Democrats' well-planned assault on Gingrich know that thereof the four complaints before the Ethics Committee have little merit.
Gingrich looked a bit crass in plugging his lecture tapes on the House floor, but they are distributed by a nonprofit educational foundation. Gingrich receives no money from the course. Writing books was exempted from House limits on outside income.
Source: Newt!, by Dick Williams, p.188-190
Jun 1, 1995
On Technology:
Tax credit for inner-city computers: "Let them eat laptops"
Gingrich's appetite for wide-ranging ideas--a sort of political version of "grazing" restaurants that specialize in light plates over sumptuous main courses--has led the intellectual class to dismiss him, despite his doctorate on
European history from Tulane University. One Atlanta columnist was fond of using "loopy" to describe Gingrich's menu of interests and solutions. Even the
Speaker himself is capable of recognizing his scattergun approach. "Maybe it's a nutty idea," he told the House Ways and Means Committee in January
1995, after mentioning that all policy options needed to be up for discussion, including a tax credit for laptop computers for very inner-city child. "Let them eat laptops," replied the opinion writers.
Source: Newt!, by Dick Williams, p. 12
Jun 1, 1995
On Technology:
Co-founded Congressional Space Caucus
When Gingrich went to Congress in 1979, he focused on national defense, foreign policy, and the Strategic Defense Initiative ("Star Wars"). Ever the futurist, Gingrich co-founded the Congressional Space Caucus, leading critics to dub him "the congressman
from outer space." In "Window of Opportunity," Gingrich wrote: "Imagine that the National Security Council had understood that an America which aggressively moved ahead in space would overawe the Russians. Imagine that business and individual leaders
had been far-sighted enough to understand that a space industry would spin off earth-based jobs, using satellite antennas, new medicines, large surfaces and zero-gravity alloys. Finally, imagine a generation of educators who understood that young people
need inspiration to motivate them to learn math and science, and that space was the adventure most likely to produce young Americans anxious to master these technical fields so essential to our survival."
Source: Newt!, by Dick Williams, p. 40-41
Jun 1, 1995
On Technology:
Television is the wasteland of cynicism
Gingrich is fond of putting himself in the place of the inner-city seven-year-old, a child used to violence, in a home without books, and, in too many cases, an unhappy young mother. The child watches television programs that portray businessmen as evil,
politicians on the take, and policemen taking bribes. (He calls television "the wasteland of cynicism.") "If you're a little kid today who reads too much or speaks English that's too good, you get beaten up."
Source: Newt!, by Dick Williams, p. 53
Jun 1, 1995
On Technology:
Televise Congress: "C-Span is more real than being there"
C-Span, the cable industry's cooperative network, had been televising Congress since the year Gingrich arrived in Washington. Gingrich understood that an overwhelming number of
C-Span viewers were voters. In a memorable line to Atlanta reporters, Gingrich said, "C-Span is more real than being there."
Source: Newt!, by Dick Williams, p.103
Jun 1, 1995
On Technology:
Abolish tax deferral for media sales to minorities
In January, 1995, Republicans in the House moved to strike a 17-year-old preference in broadcast law that allowed station and cable system owners to defer capital gains from the sale of a property if it were sold to minorities. Murdoch's Fox Television
Stations division was trying to sell its WATL-TV in Atlanta to a minority group financed by the Chicago Tribune Company. He stood to defer some $30 million in taxes through the sale. After the House killed the program, an exemption for Murdoch and the
Tribune Company, was inserted in the Senate bill by Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun of Illinois. Her amendment was approved in a House-Senate conference committee. Gingrich said he was opposed to the amendment and wanted the program abolished altogether, but th
House was powerless to negotiate the one exemption away. President Clinton said he would refuse to veto the bill for much the same reason--it was a sound measure overall.
Source: Newt!, by Dick Williams, p.200
Jun 1, 1995
On Welfare & Poverty:
Welfare state has distorted beyond its original intent
Newt Gingrich's campaign speech, in 1993 and 1994, included: "It is impossible to maintain civilization with 12-year-olds having babies, 15-year-olds killing each other, 17-year-olds dying of AIDS, and 18-year-olds getting diplomas they can't even read.
Yet that is precisely where three generations of Washington-dominated, centralized-government, welfare-state policies have carried us."With those two sentences, refined from years of study and practice, Newt
Gingrich found the message that convinced the nation to elect a Republican majority to Congress. That majority chose him Speaker of the House.
Those two sentences--one undeniable, the other contentious--are the essential Gingrich. They are the end
result of a career-long search by Gingrich for a message simple and powerful enough to convince Americans that the welfare state had been distorted beyond its original intent. A mammoth, overreaching federal government now is causing more harm than good.
Source: Newt!, by Dick Williams, p. 3-4
Jun 1, 1995
On Welfare & Poverty:
Error at core of welfare state is its dehumanization
The welfare system has failed because its core understanding of humans is wrong. Not because it doesn't have enough money. Not because the people who run it don't know what they're doing. Not because of some minor thing. At the heart of the welfare state
is an error.Look at what the welfare state does. The welfare state reduces citizens to clients, subordinates them to bureaucrats, and subjects them to rules that are anti-work, anti-family, anti-opportunity, and anti-property. Now, if you doubt this,
one project might well be to apply for the system. Just spend two days being a person who's applying to get into the system.
The evening news is the natural result of the welfare state. That literally, when you watch the killings, you watch the
brutality, you watch the child abuse, my question back would be: What did you think would happen when you put people in these kind of settings and you deprive them of their God-given rights and you then say to them, 'Now you are less than a full person.'
Source: Newt!, by Dick Williams, p. 33-34
Jun 1, 1995
On Welfare & Poverty:
Welfare vouchers allow choice & reduce bureaucracy
In Gingrich's 1984 book Window of Opportunity, welfare programs received a scant three pages. Gingrich proposed that recipients receive cash and credit card vouchers directly in order to allow more choices and, not coincidentally, chip away
at the bureaucracy. It was a precursor of the plank in the Contract With America to turn programs into block grants for the states.In 1984, Gingrich said, "No one must fall beneath a certain level of poverty, even if we must give away food and money
to keep that from happening." He urged the creation of day care centers for welfare mothers who would be forced to leave home to work or study. But in another preview of the Contract With America,
Gingrich suggested that minor girls should be ineligible for Aid to Families With Dependent Children if they became pregnant. Aid would go first to their parents or guardians.
Source: Newt!, by Dick Williams, p. 39
Jun 1, 1995
On Welfare & Poverty:
Food stamps crowd out space shuttles
The Speaker's fascination with space and technology is related to his concerns over a permanent welfare state. For Newt, the welfare state drains budgets and stifles innovation. Those who question whether Newt Gingrich has been consistent in his approach
to welfare issues should take note of his words in 1984 on what stymies space exploration and government seed money for biotechnology and futurist research:In "Window of Opportunity," Gingrich wrote: "The amazing fact was that America literally stood
in the Moon and watched in its living rooms as the dream of freedom reached out beyond our planet in 1969. And yet we turned back and wallowed in the problems of the welfare state for a decade. Food stamps crowded out space shuttles; energy assistance
crowded out a solar-power-satellite project that would have provided energy for all; more bureaucracy in Health and Human Services shoved aside a permanently manned space station."
Source: Newt!, by Dick Williams, p. 40-41
Jun 1, 1995
On Budget & Economy:
Achieve balanced budget by 2002
To achieve a balanced budget by 2002, both Democratic and Republican governors will tell you it's doable, but it's hard. I don't think it's doable in a year or two. I don't think we ought to lie to the
American people. This is a huge, complicated job. I think the baby boomers are now old enough that we can have an honest dialogue about priorities, about resources, about what works, about what doesn't.
I think on a bipartisan basis, we owe it to our children and our grandchildren to get this government in order to be able to actually pay our way. I think 2002 is a reasonable time frame and
I would hope we can open a dialogue with the American people.
Source: Inaugural Speaker speech, in Newt!, by D.Williams, p. 222-3
Jan 4, 1995
On Families & Children:
Co-established bipartisan task force on the family
Today we had a bipartisan service. It talked about caring about our spouses, and our children, and our families. Because if we're not prepared to model that, beyond just having them here for one day,
if we're not prepared to care about our children, and we're not prepared to care about our families, then by what arrogance do we think we will transcend our behavior to care about others?
That's why with Congressman [Richard] Gephardt's help, we've established a bipartisan task force on the family.
We've established the principle that we're going to set schedules we stick to so families can count on times to be together, built around the school schedules, so that families can get to know each other and not just on C-Span.
Source: Inaugural Speaker speech, in Newt!, by D.Williams, p. 220
Jan 4, 1995
On Principles & Values:
If you're afraid or broke or uneducated, you're not free
This morning's closing hymn at the prayer service was the "Battle Hymn of the Republic." The key phrase is, "As He died to make men holy, let us live to make men free." It's not just political freedom.
If you can't afford to leave the public housing project, you're not free. If you don't know how to finds a job and don't know how to create a job, you're not free. If you can't find a place that will educate you, you're not free.
If you're afraid to walk to the store because you could get killed, you're not free.
And so as all of us in the coming months sing that song, "As
He died to make men holy, let us live to make men free," I want us to dedicate ourselves to reach out in a genuinely nonpartisan way.
Source: Inaugural Speaker speech, in Newt!, by D.Williams, p. 226-7
Jan 4, 1995
On Welfare & Poverty:
Replace welfare state with opportunity society
We must replace the welfare state with an opportunity society. This issue has the moral urgency of coming to grips with what's happening to the poorest Americans. How can any American read about an 11-year-old buried with his teddy bear because he killed
a 14-year-old, and not have some sense of, my God, where has this country gone? How can we not decide that this is a moral crisis equal to slavery? I believe when we are told that children are so lost in the city bureaucracies that there are children
in Dumpsters, when we are told that there are children doomed to go to schools where 70% or 80% of them will not graduate. When we're told of public housing projects that are so dangerous that if any private sector ran them, they would be put in jail,
and we're given, "Well, we'll study it. We'll get around to it." My only point is: We can find ways immediately to do things better and to reach out and to break through the bureaucracy and to give every young American child a better chance.
Source: Inaugural Speaker speech, in Newt!, by D.Williams, p. 224
Jan 4, 1995
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