Newt Gingrich in To Save America, by Newt Gingrich

On Budget & Economy: Microlending efficiently gets money to local entrepreneurs

Megabanks, which got into so much trouble during the Wall Street meltdown, could never successfully microlend. They're too big and too bureaucratic to understand and analyze millions of small entrepreneurs, and they could never afford the cost of analyzing so many loan applications and processing checks.

Now consider this: if big banks are too isolated and too bureaucratic to operate successfully in small, local settings, why would we think big, centralized government bureaucracies could do better?

On Budget & Economy: Putting people in houses they can't afford invites disaster

• If you do not have any credit, government will find a way.
• If you cannot save for a down payment, government will waive the requirement.
• If you cannot afford to pay the principal, government will give you an interest-only loan for the first three years.
• If you cannot even afford full interest payment, government will give you a below market rate.

On Civil Rights: Repeal hate speech legislation including campus speech codes

• Repeal so-called "hate speech" legislation. Allowing the courts to broadly determine what they consider "hate speech" is profoundly dangerous to a free people. Congress has no constitutional authority to regulate thought. Speech is already protected, and criminal activities are already legally defined, as are their punishments. Religious leaders who speak either from the pulpits are particularly vulnerable.
• Bar public universities that enforce campus speech codes from using taxpayer funding. The forerunner to recently passed "hate speech" legislation can be found in many of today's publicly funded universities. College campuses historically have been the incubator of ideas and the strongholds of free expression. Today, those same schools have instituted intolerant rules and reporting systems designed to silence speech deemed politically incorrect.

On Corporations: Chrysler bankruptcy bailout was politically rigged

In return, the federal government disregarded bankruptcy law & the unions were made the primary beneficiaries of the Chrysler bankruptcy. The Obama Treasury Department strong-armed Chrysler's creditors into a deal in which the UAW was given 55% ownership of the company.

As rotten as it was, the Chrysler bankruptcy was just a prelude to the General Motors bankruptcy, again brokered by the Obama administration. And once again, the big losers were the bondholders.

According to a Barrons's magazine analysis, while the bondholders will be lucky to recover 15 cents on the dollar, the UAW can expect to recover up to 6-70 cents on the dollar--four to five times what the bondholders will receive. As the magazine noted, "Never has an American union done so well at the expense of shareholders and creditors."

On Corporations: Big business uses government to protect itself from rivals

The Left's message to business is simple: support our regulatory schemes or get crushed. And they know that big business--the only ones that can afford a seat at the table--will pay whatever it takes to join them.

This is nothing new. As the regulatory state has grown, big business has learned to use big government to protect itself from small business rivals. The Left can often easily pass new regulations when they get big business on board, and these laws help both parties: the Left create the illusions they're standing up for the little guy, and big business gets laws that damage their small competitors.

On Corporations: Cut corporate taxes to 12.5%

First, we should cut corporate taxes. American suffers from the second highest business tax rate in the industrialized world, with a federal rate of 35 percent, and states pushing it close to 40 percent. Much of the rest of the world, ironically, has learned the lessons of Reaganomics. Ireland has a corporate tax rate of 12.4 percent, which has caused per capita income to soar from the second lowest in the EU twenty years ago to the second highest today.

We should restore America's competitiveness in the world by reducing the federal business tax rate to match Ireland's rate of 12.5 percent.

On Education: School prayer ban shows secular socialists oppose God

Traditional America values hard work, entrepreneurship, innovation, and merit-based upward mobility. But the secular-socialist machine rewards its members, punishes "overachievers," kills job by over-taxing small businesses, and even exploits your death to tax the savings you hope to pass on to your children and grandchildren.

Traditional America was based on a profound belief that "we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights." But secular socialists are so opposed to God in public life that they can't tolerate school prayer or even allow a cross to stand in the middle of the Mojave Desert.

On Education: Since 1963 school prayer ban, teen pregnancy & drugs are up

• Drug addiction is up.
• Teenage pregnancy is up.
• Drinking is up.
• Violence is up.
• Rape in schools is up.
• Assaults on teachers are up.
• The display of disrespectful attitudes is up.

On Education: Don't ban Bibles from public schools

To protect religious liberty in education we should adhere to the following:
• Since it is the prerogative of parents to choose the instruction that is best for their child, we must preserve the homeschooling option.
• School districts should be allowed to offer optional religious instruction including Bible study. Providing this option in no way constitutes an establishment of religion.
• Parents should be free to choose the school of their choice, including religious schools. They should be given an education credit coupon (a Pell Grant for K-12) allowing them more options to choose a school that best fits their own values.
• Parents must have the right to choose which value instruction their child receives and therefore must be able to opt out without qualification.
• US history classes should study the influences of religion on the Founders and other historical figures.
• Religious texts, including Bibles and scriptures, should not be banned in public schools.

On Energy & Oil: Doomsday climate theory pushes massive wealth transfer

With our historical emphasis on free enterprise and national sovereignty, Americans have resisted these extreme measures. But we believe genuine environmental problems, many of them ignored due to the global warming obsessions, cannot be resolved without U.S. leadership.

On Environment: Tragic Kelo case confiscated private property

Rejecting the sanctity of private property, the secular-socialist model has no problem with a city council or Washington bureaucrat taking your property and giving it to someone else. It has presided over a steady decline in private property rights over the last generation, highlighted by the tragic "Kelo vs. City of New London" case, in which the Supreme Court unconsciously ruled that private property can be confiscated from individuals and given to private developers if, in the judgment of local, state, or federal bureaucrats, doing so would aid economic growth and raise tax revenues.

Reasserting private property right will be deeply resisted by every local and federal bureaucrat and every judge who likes having the power to use your property to enrich someone else. And it will be opposed by every environmental group eager to tell you what you can and cannot do with your own property.

On Environment: Correct use of DDT doesn't harm humans nor environment

On Environment: Green conservatism: market-oriented, incentive-led

Green conservatives are political active in Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom among other nations. When we first applied the term in U.S. politics, we defined green conservatism as: "An optimistic, positive, science and technology-based, entrepreneurial, market-oriented, incentive-led, conservative environmentalism that creates more solutions faster and that will result in more biodiversity with less pollution and a safer planet."

Entrepreneurial environmentalists are the new agents of change on the frontlines of a creative environmental movement. Government's role, rather than to dictate it, is to incentivize.

On Families & Children: Stop funding China's mandatory one-child policy

Valuing life from the beginning to end is central to a healthy culture. To uphold life we should:
• Ensure that taxpayer dollars are never used for funding elective abortions, which are cases that don't involve rape or incest or where it is necessary to save the life of the mother.
• Defund the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which is using U.S. taxpayer dollars to help enforce China's mandatory one-child policy that compels, sometimes through force, millions of women to undergo abortions.
• Reinstate the "Mexico City Policy,: which banned funding to organizations that promote and/or perform abortion overseas. President Obama rescinded it shortly after his inauguration.
• Protect the frail, the infirm, and the elderly from the state's arbitrary decision to terminate life.

On Foreign Policy: UN is corrupt bureaucracy that protects dictators

Since even the most despotic governments are entitled to UN membership, the UN is not limited by elections or the need to keep up democratic appearances. And, lacking America's legal framework for government transparency, the organizatio is more prone to corruption.

The UN's most influential voting block is a group of 130 undeveloped countries called the G-77. Using the UN's one country-one vote system, the G-77 has hijacked the UN to turn it into a mechanism for redistributing wealth from developed to developing countries.

The beneficiaries are not poverty-stricken families suffering under dictatorships. To the contrary, the illicit funds go straight to their oppressors--the privileged bureaucrats that prop up despotic regimes.

On Government Reform: Replace Washington controls with American ideals

1. Work vs. theft
2. Productivity vs. union work rules and bureaucracy
3. Elected representation vs. bureaucrats & judges
4. Honesty vs. corruption
5. Low taxes with limited government vs. high taxes with big government
6. Private property vs. government controls
7. Localism vs. Washington control
8. American energy vs. environmental extremism
9. Conflict resolutio vs. litigation
10. Religious belief vs. secular oppression

On Government Reform: Passing massive debt to next generation is immoral

On Health Care: $151B wasted annually to avoid malpractice lawsuits

If we want Americans to emphasize cooperation and problem solving over acrimonious, costly conflicts, we must have litigation reform.

Most Americans agree there are too many lawyers filing too many lawsuits, especially in medicine.

An estimated $151-210 billion is wasted annually in defensive medicine, as doctors follow unnecessary procedures and conduct needless tests and services solely to avoid malpractice lawsuits.

In preparing for health reform in 2009, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that litigation reform in medical malpractice would save the federal government $53 billion over ten years.

For most doctors and businesses, litigation reform is important but it's not dire. But for the trial lawyers--the reactionary defenders of the old order--this is a life-or-death issue.

On Health Care: Focus on Availability, Affordability, and Appropriateness

• Will healthcare be AVAILABLE for me and my family when we need it?
• Will we be able to AFFORD what we need?
• Will what is offered be APPROPRIATE for us?

1. Availability: A 21st century healthcare system must use creative initiatives like medical education debt forgiveness.
2. Affordability: There is a waste and inefficiency across the entire spectrum of discovery, development and delivery of healthcare.
3. Delivery: The system of product delivery today is plagued by fraud and abuse, contributing to a dramatic waste of money, time, talent, and expertise.
4. Appropriateness: Radically transform healthcare so that treatment is no longer based on population medicine, but on personalized medicine. This can begin with modernizing the FDA.

On Health Care: $600B to $850B in healthcare waste every year

• Unnecessary care (40 percent)
• Fraud (19 percent)
• Administrative inefficiency (17 percent)
• Healthcare provider errors (12percent)
• Preventable conditions (6 percent)
• Lack of care coordination (6 percent)

On Homeland Security: Enemy combatants not entitled to Miranda rights

The secular socialists, however, want to give out enemies the same constitutional protections we afford our own citizens, effectively placing the right of terrorists ahead of the lives of Americans. With the Left in charge, when a foreign terrorist tried to blow up an airplane over Detroit, he was read his Miranda rights (which, as a foreign enemy combatant, he was not actually entitled to have). Taxpayers were forces to pay for the terrorist's lawyer, who most likely advised his client not to answer questions except as leverage to get a plea bargain.

On Homeland Security: Gitmo lawyers threaten to identify our CIA officers

All these lawyers would undoubtedly deny having sympathy for al Qaeda, but the actions of some of them went far beyond simply challenging a detention policy they thought was unjust. In Aug. 2009, they provided photographs of CIA officers to their clients in an attempt to identify those officers who had interrogated them when they were captured overseas. The lawyers were apparently unconcerned by the potential threat to our CIA officers from being identified by name to al Qaeda and Taliban terrorists.

On Jobs: Union power games the system to minimize work

Because we are self-reliant and operate in markets where people won't pay us if we cheat, Americans have created an environment where honesty pays. In contrast, the secular-socialist machine, with its commitment to a socialist vision of wealth redistribution, has undermined the very concept of "an honest day's work," especially through its union power, In fact, it spreads the opposite ethic: game the system to get as many benefits as you can while working as little as possible.

On Jobs: Card Check strips workers of right to secret ballot

On Jobs: Jobs plan: lower taxes; lower spending; domestic energy

1. Reduce spending and replace inefficient and often corrupt government programs with limited, effective government in order to balance the budget.
2. Enact five key tax reforms to reward job creation, entrepreneurship, savings, and investment.
   • Immediate payroll tax relief.
   • Incentives for investing in new equipment.
   • Zero taxes on capital gains.
   • Reduced tax rate for businesses
   • Eliminate the death tax.
3. Implement an American energy plan to create American jobs and keep American money at home. Developing more domestic energy while protecting the environment would means millions of new American jobs. Source: To Save America, by Newt Gingrich, p.179-182 May 17, 2010

   On Principles & Values: America is now facing a mortal threat

   This is a book I never expected to write. After the victory of freedom over Communist tyranny, of religious liberty over secular police states, and of American pride over the malaise and cynicism of the 1970s, I fully expected America to follow an upward curve of consistent improvement. I did not expect the Left to ignore the lessons of history and move further into ideological extremism.

   After leaving Congress in 1999 with a balanced budget and a booming economy, I certainly did not foresee Republican failure so vast that it allowed left-wing radicals to take over the House, Senate, and Presidency.

   America as we know it is now facing a mortal threat.

   This danger to America is greater than anything I dreamed possible after we won the Cold War and the Soviet Union in December 1991. We stand at a crossroads: either we will save our country or we will lose it.

   Source: To Save America, by Newt Gingrich, p. 1-2 May 17, 2010

   On Principles & Values: Saul Alinsky is clear: Left needs to be dishonest

   Perhaps nobody has been more clear about the Left's need for dishonesty than Saul Alinsky, considered the godfather of community organizing. His two most famous works, "Reveille for Radicals" and "Rules for Radicals" were published in the late 60s and early 70s. In these works, Alinsky draws a distinction between meek, garden-variety liberals and brave, revolutionary radicals. "While liberals are most adept at breaking their own necks with their tongues," Alinsky wrote, "radicals are most adept at breaking the necks of conservatives."

   Many of his "rules" are guidelines for engaging in immoral, dangerous, political dishonesty, including the following:

   • "In war the end justifies almost any means."
   • "Concern with ethics increases with the number of means available and vice versa."
   • "The less important the end to be desired, the more one can afford to engage in ethical evaluation of means."
   • "You do what you can with what you have and clothe it with moral garments."
   Source: To Save America, by Newt Gingrich, p. 46-47 May 17, 2010

   On Social Security: Capital markets return more that Social Security promises

   A key concept for positive, structural entitlement replacement is personal accounts for Social Security, which would let workers substitute savings & investment accounts for at least part of the current system.

   Beginning at any size, accounts could be expanded over time until workers can choose to substitute them for all their Social Security retirement benefits. This could be accomplished using just the 6.2% employee share of the Social Security payroll tax, still leaving workers with close to twice the benefits Social Security promises under current law (but which in the future it will not be able to pay).

   A bill introduced by Rep. Paul Ryan maintains the current social safety net in full by including a federal guarantee that if any retiree's account cannot pay at least what Social Security would under current law, the federal government would pay the difference. Because capital market returns are so much higher, however, it's unlikely the government would ever have to pay off this guarantee.

   Source: To Save America, by Newt Gingrich, p.192-195 May 17, 2010

   The above quotations are from To Save America Stopping Obama's Secular-Socialist Machine, by Newt Gingrich. Click here for main summary page. Click here for a profile of Newt Gingrich. Click here for Newt Gingrich on all issues.
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