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To: Cincinatus' Wife
Did Newt oppose the Bush 2001 tax cuts? Because this is what the liberals say, that it was the Bush 2001 tax cuts that created deficits?

Or does he think we should have cut spending after 9/11? Because 9/11 pushed our country deeper into recession, while at the same time requiring a large re-buildup of our armed forces.

Does Gingrich think we shouldn't have built up the Armed Forces in response to 9/11? One way the budget was "balanced" was Clinton's military cuts. Does Gingrich think that was a good thing?

After 9/11, we went to war in Afghanistan, and that cost hundreds of billions. Does Newt Gingrich think we should not have done that? We then invaded Iraq, and that cost hundreds of billions. Does Newt think that was a mistake?

Unemployment shot up before and after 9/11. Does Newt think we should have cancelled the tax cuts when revenue was clearly going down because of the recession? Does he think we should have cut the programs that increased after 9/11 because of increased unemployment -- food stamps, unemployment payments?

Where is a quote from Newt Gingrich in 2001 complaining about the deficit spending in that first budget after 9/11? Or in 2002, or in 2003, or in 2004? Where is Gingrich telling us not to do more tax cuts in 2003?

What was one of the biggest spending increases in the 2000s? The Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit. Did Gingrich oppose that? Not at all, he is responsible for it:

Newt Gingrich played the role of political godfather in pushing the Medicare prescription drug benefit into law, returning to Capitol Hill in November 2003 to deliver a pivotal speech that turned some conservative skeptics into believers.
...
“Newt was critical to the passage of Medicare Part D,” recalls John Feehery, who was Speaker Dennis Hastert’s chief spokesman at the time. The speech “was very powerful,” Feehery said.
...
His sales pitch, more than anything else, switched my vote and votes of others on a bill that still took most of the night to pass while the vote was held open,” former Rep. Mark Souder (R-Ind.) recalled in a recent interview with POLITICO conducted via e-mail. “And Medicare is going broke faster than ever.”

Of course, while we had deficit spending in the early 2000s, that spending was coming back down. Too slowly, but we were working back toward balance, until TARP. GIngrich opposed TARP, right? Well, not quite:

STEPHANOPOULOS: “Speaker Gingrich, there’s also, I think, a recognition, at least in some of the polls I’ve seen, that something has to be done.”

SPEAKER NEWT GINGRICH: “Sure, look, something has to be done. … I suspect were I still in Congress, in the end George [Will] is right, and I probably would end up voting reluctantly yes....

Of course, the important thing is to beat Romney in Illinois. And by attacking Santorum for not balancing the budget, that will certainly draw more voters away from Romney and to Santorum in Illinois today, right? I mean, it's not like Gingrich is going to get enough votes in Illinois to matter, he's not even running advertising there. Heck, Santorum even started using Gingrich's flawed attacks on Romney's Bain Capital days, in a last-ditch effort to stop him (seems to be working about as well as when Gingrich tried it though), and then Gingrich attacks Santorum for spending too much?

But as a Gingrich supporter, I'm sure you will have a bunch of quotes from 2001 and 2003 where Gingrich says the congress is overspending and asks for specific spending cuts to get back to balance, right?

21 posted on 03/20/2012 5:50:50 AM PDT by CharlesWayneCT
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To: CharlesWayneCT

Illinois is all Mitt’s and Rick’s.

Let’s see what Santorum can do mano-a-mano against Romney.

Newt took the weekend off and is in Louisiana all week.

Go pout somewhere else.


27 posted on 03/20/2012 5:58:48 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
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