Hmmmmm...The Speaker that pushed through welfare reform or the President that gave us Obamacare? Who would be better to reform entitlements?
Newt did not “push through welfare reform.”
President Clinton vetoed the bill when first passed.
What happened next?
Newt and the GOP caved. They added in billions and billions in NEW entitlement spending, including federally-funded childcare benefits, new Medicaid eligibility, job subsidies and so on.
With all this NEW entitlement spending, President Clinton then happily signed the “improved” bill.
Who won that round, please?
Newt didn’t push through anything. The GOP got this “legislative victory” the old-fashioned way: they bought it. Anybody can do that.
And then President Clinton got to claim that he reformed welfare AND raised entitlement spending! Sweet!
NOT.
Here's the summary of Newt's policy on healthcare reform from his website:
This comprehensive approach—cost, quality, competition, and coverage—can solve the problem of the uninsured with no individual mandate and no employer mandate. Everyone would be able to obtain essential health care and coverage when needed. For those who are too poor to buy health insurance, states will have more flexibility to provide them with the assistance they need to buy it. For those who nevertheless choose not to purchase coverage and then become too sick to do so, high risk pools will provide access to coverage. Once you have health insurance, you are assured you can keep it. By contrast, even Obamacare for all its trillions in taxes, spending, new entitlements, and new bureaucracy still does not achieve universal coverage.
Gingrich's goal is to achieve what "even Obamacare could not achieve": UNIVERSAL COVERAGE.
I cap that term because it's one that most Republicans would not and never use, precisely because it is so often a code word for Socialized Medicine.
Newt says everyone will have insurance, but individuals won't be forced to buy insurance and employers won't be forced to buy insurance for their employees. So who pays? What in the world is he talking about here?
Yes, some people claim that Paul Ryan's plan -- the one that Newt destroyed as "right-wing social engineering" -- provides for de facto universal coverage through a refundable tax credit. So I guess Newt is now cribbing off the plan that he formerly dissed (and whose momentum he killed at precisely the worst time)?
But Ryan and others have specifically stated that their plan is not "universal coverage." It's more like universal access to coverage through an incentive (tax credit) rather than mandated universal coverage.
My point is this: read that paragraph again and ask yourself if it's not claiming Newt is going to out-Obamacare Obamacare and do it somehow (magically?) with direct tax dollars and voluntary participation, as opposed to individual and employer mandates.