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Are you done posting your PURE AND TOTAL LIES which in extremely liberal fashion attempt to smear and destroy the leader of the hard-line conservative rebels in Congress who became an insider-revolutionary who led the most conservative Congress in our lifetime? ANYONE who thinks Newt is NOT one of the biggest conservatives who has ever been elected to national public office IS AN ABSOLUTE IGNORANT IDIOT. You are quoting the worst lies from Drudge and Romney including that Newt supposedly wanted to move away from the policies of Reagan or that he paid a fine in Congress...COMPLETE AND UTTER LIES. STOP posting these LIES! I believe lying is against the policy of this forum but we can ask the mods about that.

http://www.newt.org/answers#Ethics

Ethics Investigation

In 1999, after a 3 ½ year investigation, the Internal Revenue Service (under President Bill Clinton) concluded that Gingrich did not violate any tax laws, leading renowned CNN Investigative Reporter Brooks Jackson to remark on air “it turns out [Gingrich] was right and those who accused him of tax fraud were wrong.”

Eighty four politically motivated ethics charges were filed against Newt when he was Speaker of the House regarding the use of tax exempt funds for a college course he taught titled “Renewing American Civilization.” Eighty-three of the eighty-four charges were found to be without merit and dropped. The remaining charge had to do with contradictory documents prepared by Newt’s lawyer supplied during the course of the investigation. Newt took responsibility for the error and agreed to reimburse the committee the cost of the investigation into that discrepancy. In 1999, after a 3 ½ year investigation, the Internal Revenue Service (under President Bill Clinton, nonetheless) concluded that Gingrich did not violate any tax laws, leading renowned CNN Investigative Reporter Brooks Jackson to remark on air “it turns out [Gingrich] was right and those who accused him of tax fraud were wrong.”

http://www.newt.org/answers#EdDept

Vote for Department of Education

As President, Newt will dramatically shrink the Department of Education to a research and reporting overview agency, and restore decision-making powers to states and communities.

When Newt voted for the creation of the Department of Education, the institution was only structured to provide research and collect data. Unfortunately, the bureaucracy ballooned, so while Speaker, Newt aggressively campaigned to pare down the Department back to its appropriate role and return power to the states.

As President, Newt will dramatically shrink the Department of Education to a research and reporting overview agency, and restore decision-making powers to states and communities. Most responsibilities and positions will be eliminated, and its new role will be to help find new and innovative approaches to then be adopted voluntarily at the local level. Newt will steadfastly oppose any national curriculum standards, and will reverse Barack Obama’s nationalization of the student loan industry.

http://www.newt.org/answers#NAFTA

NAFTA

As an ardent supporter of capitalism and the free market, Newt has always been a staunch supporter of expanding opportunities for American manufacturers, farmers, and businesses to bring their goods and services to the world market.

Since first entering Congress, Newt has put the interests of American entrepreneurs, producers and consumers first, as he supported the historic Reagan tax cuts, then went against many in his own party to oppose the George Bush and Clinton tax hikes. When the North American Free Trade Agreement in came up for a vote in 1993, Newt recalled the words of Ronald Reagan in 1979: “A developing closeness among Canada, Mexico, and the United States—a North American accord—would permit achievement of that potential in each country beyond that which I believe any of them, strong as they are, could accomplish in the absence of such cooperation.”

Although controversial at first, NAFTA has created vast new opportunities for American producers and consumers. In the first fifteen years after NAFTA’s passage, U.S. industrial production rose 57% and unemployment averaged 5.1%. In the decade preceding the trade agreements, industrial production only rose 28% and unemployment average 7.1%.

However, a strong American manufacturing base is an economic and national security imperative, and there are steps that Newt will take on day one to rebuild American industry. Newt will immediately eliminate the capital gains tax for all manufacturers, and will give manufacturers the opportunity to fully write-off capital investments in one year, freeing up more resources to hire more employees. Gingrich will implement an “all of the above” American Energy Plan to lower energy costs for manufacturers and their employees, and replace the EPA, ending its 40-year assault on American energy and entrepreneurship.

http://www.newt.org/answers#CFR

U.S. Sovereignty/Council on Foreign Relations

Newt believes that we must always be vigilant about our sovereignty, and hold our lawmakers and courts accountable to our Constitution – and only our Constitution.

This is a belief firmly rooted in American Exceptionalism. As citizens, we came together to create an American government and body of laws of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Newt has vocally stood up for American sovereignty against Washington elites and an Obama Administration who view America as an unremarkable nation.

Newt believes that it is a violation of our sovereignty when the Department of Justice attempts to cite “international norms” to restrict our Second Amendment rights. It is a violation of our sovereignty when the White House sends taxpayer dollars towards a UN environmental program, Agenda 21, that infringes on Americans’ property rights. And it is certainly a violation of our sovereignty when our President seeks approval from the United Nations – not Congress – to send our troops into war, as he did with Libya.

Q: If he is a defender of U.S. Sovereignty why is Newt a member of the Council on Foreign Relations?

After 9/11, Newt was asked to serve on CFR’s Terrorism Task Force and he accepted. On this task force he has brought his same commitment to defending U.S. sovereignty as he has throughout his career.

http://www.newt.org/answers#FDR

Praise for FDR

When the Japanese sneak attack at Pearl Harbor threw the United States into a global war against Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan, Franklin Delano Roosevelt rose to the challenge. He led the allies in a global war with remarkable skill and built the greatest military in history. Newt believes that without FDR’s leadership as Commander in Chief during World War II, the 20th century would have been a Nazi century rather than an American century. Ronald Reagan too praised FDR, saying that “like the Founding Fathers before him, F.D.R. was an American giant.”

http://www.newt.org/answers#TARP

TARP

Newt believes that the reckless, secretive and opaque way in which the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department administered the bailouts has been an affront to democracy.

Newt was appalled and disgusted at the amount of dictatorial power that Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson tried to grab for himself at the outset of the financial crisis. However, he reluctantly supported a scaled-down plan after Paulson told the country that the world financial system was going to collapse without this emergency support.

Newt believes that the reckless, secretive and opaque way in which the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department administered the bailouts has been an affront to democracy. The Fed was picking winners and losers, using several emergency lending facilities to make all types of loans to connected parties, including to a bank owned by the Libyan government.

This is why broadly scaling back the role of the Federal Reserve and repealing the Dodd-Frank bill are two of the central pillars of Newt’s 21st Century Contract with America. The Fed will be fully audited and made more transparent to ensure the events of 2008 are never repeated, and getting rid of Dodd-Frank will once and for all end the destructive policy of “too big to fail.”

http://www.newt.org/answers#Mandate

Mandate to Purchase health insurance

Newt opposes Governor Romney’s health insurance mandate, and Newt opposes President Obama’s health insurance mandate. Newt believes mandates to buy health insurance are wrong on principle, and in the case of the Obamacare health insurance mandate, unconstitutional as well.

With respect to President Obama’s health insurance mandate, Newt believes it is an unprecedented and unconstitutional expansion of federal power. If the federal government can coerce individuals—by threat of fines—to buy health insurance, there is no stopping the federal government from forcing Americans to buy any good or service. It is a serious and unconstitutional infringement of individual liberty.

With respect to Governor Romney’s mandate, we have observed that it doesn’t achieve its goal of providing low cost catastrophic coverage for the uninsured. The intractable problem we have learned from experience with health insurance mandates is this: once you have a mandate, the government has to specify exactly what coverage must be included in insurance for it to qualify. This introduces political considerations into determining these minimum standards, guaranteeing that nothing desired by the special interests will be left out.

In the 1990s, Newt and many other conservatives, such as the Heritage Foundation, proposed a mandate to purchase health insurance as the alternative to Hillarycare. However, the problems outlined above caused Newt to come to the principled conclusion that a mandate to purchase health insurance was unconstitutional, unworkable and counterproductive to lowering the cost of healthcare.

Today, Newt carries the banner in fighting for the repeal of Obamacare and advocates for a “patient power” replacement that will create a free market framework for healthcare, provide affordable, portable, and reliable healthcare coverage, and establish a healthcare safety net focused on those truly in need. This system moves us towards the goal of healthcare for all with no unconstitutional mandate of any kind.

http://www.newt.org/answers#DREAM

Immigration/DREAM Act

In his 21st Century Contract with America, Newt pledges to control the southern border by January 1, 2014, waiving any regulations and pushing aside any bureaucracies that get in the way.

Newt is opposed to amnesty and has a clear record of vigorous opposition to the Bush era amnesty legislation.

Newt believes America must be a nation of laws. The first duty of the federal government is national defense, and it is inexcusable that we haven’t secured the border. In his 21st Century Contract with America, Newt pledges to control the southern border by January 1, 2014, waiving any regulations and pushing aside any bureaucracies that get in the way.

As we secure the border, we must make an aggressive and serious effort to deport all criminals, gang members, and any other threats to our society as quickly as possible. We must also tap into the ingenuity of the private sector to better validate who is in the United States legally.

Newt opposed the DREAM Act. However, he did agree with part of the legislation which allowed those who came to the United States illegally as children to serve in the U.S. Military to earn their citizenship, just as foreign nationals are today allowed to do the same.

Furthermore, Newt has proposed giving local communities the authority to allow those with long established roots in the neighborhood a legal residency status, but not citizenship. Newt believes local communities are at a better vantage point to determine if those there illegally should stay or go. Under this system, we will send home those who are not self-sufficient, who have no family or community ties and quickly deport those who have committed criminal and other destructive acts, while providing minimal disruption to families and communities.

Read Newt’s 10 step immigration plan here.

http://www.newt.org/solutions/immigration

http://www.newt.org/answers#Ryan

Paul Ryan (and the House GOP’s) Medicare Plan

Like Ryan and the House GOP, Newt supports a premium support model for Medicare. However, he wants seniors to have the choice to opt into the new system or to stay in traditional Medicare.

Newt agrees wholeheartedly with Rep. Ryan that we must give our seniors more choices than the current one-size-fits-all Medicare model. Both concur that creating the opportunity for seniors to buy private insurance is the key to both improving care and lowering costs.

The one key difference is that under Newt’s plan, as outlined in his 21st Century Contract with America, seniors will also have the choice to stay in the current Medicare system or choose a private insurance plan with support from the government to pay the premiums. The other difference is that Newt believes that seniors should have this option starting next year, not in ten years.

Q: So why did Newt use the term “right wing social engineering” on Meet the Press when discussing these proposed changes to Medicare?

Gingrich is opposed to any political party imposing dramatic change against the consent of the governed. Afterwards, Newt quickly admitted that his choice of words was too extreme, and he apologized to Congressman Ryan shortly thereafter.

In response to the host’s hypothetical question of whether Republicans should change Medicare even if there is public opposition, Gingrich’s response was no you should not. One of Newt’s basic governing philosophies is that government should offer a better alternative to existing entitlement programs that seniors can freely choose. Gingrich is opposed to any political party imposing dramatic change against the consent of the governed. Afterwards, Newt quickly admitted that his choice of words was too extreme, and he apologized to Congressman Ryan shortly thereafter. Newt regards Paul Ryan as one of the biggest innovators in Washington, D.C. and he deeply admires the seriousness and boldness of his historic Path to Prosperity budget.