Politics & Government

Newt Gingrich Outlines Plan to Transform America

Former Speaker of the House spoke last night in first of series of forums featuring U.S. presidential candidates hosted by Seventh District Committee of the Georgia Republican Party.

Republican U.S. presidential candidate Newt Gingrich outlined his plan to renew and transform the country with the help of the people during a forum Wednesday (Nov. 2) at the in Duluth. His 21st Century Contract for America is a larger version of the 20th Century Contract for America.

The hour-long forum was presented by the Seventh District Committee of the Georgia Republican Party. Jason Thompson of Suwanee, who currently chairs the committee, welcomed an estimated 300 attendees. B.J. Van Gundy of Peachtree Corners, who served as chairman of the Gwinnett Republican Party when Gingrich was Speaker of the U.S. House and a former Seventh District Committee chairman, introduced Gingrich.

Gingrich was the first to reply to an invitation from the Seventh District Committee to appear in a series of forums featuring presidential candidates it plans to host. He announced in May 2011 that he was running for president of the United States in the 2012 election. Gingrich, who was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1978, served in Congress for 20 years and as Speaker of the House from 1995 to 1999.

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Julianne Thompson and Debbie Dooley, representing the Georgia Tea Party Patriots and the Atlanta Tea Party, assisted in organizing the forum. The audience included Steve Ramey of Lilburn, chairman of the Founding Fathers Tea Party Patriots. Gingrich spoke for about 20 minutes and answered questions from the audience for the next 20 minutes or so.

As he campaigns, Gingrich said, “I do not ask anyone to be for me because if they’re for me, they’re gonna vote and go home and say I sure hope Newt can fix it. And I don’t believe any one person in our system can fix it. So I go around the country, and I ask people to be with me because I believe it is very, very important that we plan to be side by side for eight years insisting on the level of change – reminding Congress, reminding the governor, the state legislature, the city council, the county commission, and the school board.”

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“And there’s a deeper reason. If we apply the 10th Amendment and we shrink the Washington {DC} bureaucracy, we have to grow citizenship back home to fill the vacuum we’re gonna create by reducing government in Washington. So this is a very, very profound change.”

Gingrich told the audience that his 21st Century Contract for America has four components.

The first part consists of 10 legislative proposals to be finalized and published on Sept. 27, 2012, the anniversary of the original 1994 Contract for America, Gingrich said. Gingrich was a co-author of the 1994 contract.

The contract’s second component is a First Day project consisting of 100 to 200 executive orders that he would sign if elected president after his inaugural address. The executive orders would be developed over the next year and published on Oct. 1 as part of the last month of his campaign. The very first executive order he signs, Gingrich said, would “abolish every White House czar.” Citizens can submit suggestions for the initial executive orders.

“Part of our goal by signing the executive orders that afternoon is by the time President Obama lands in Chicago, we will have dismantled about 40 percent of his government,” Gingrich said.

Gingrich proposes developing a “real, genuine, serious training program” for members of his presidential Cabinet, subcabinet and other appointees as the third element of the contract. “The level of change that I believe you want me to implement is so large that I do not believe we can just appoint people and hope they are smart,” he said.

The fourth part of the contract involves creating a citizen movement to provide feedback “because the fact is we’re gonna make mistakes” with this scale of change, he said. “I think it’s important to have a genuine citizens movement using things like Facebook. Google Plus, Twitter and other new devices to try to find a way to connect us electronically so we can have a permanent ongoing virtual town hall meeting of the entire country moving forward in a way no one’s ever done before.”

During his talk, Gingrich frequently referred to the 10 legislative proposals in his 21st Contract for America displayed on a banner next to the podium. The proposals include repealing President Barack Obama’s healthcare reforms, creating jobs through tax cuts and regulatory reforms, balancing the federal budget, increasing U.S. energy production, saving Medicare and Social Security, revitalizing the country’s security, and enforcing the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution by transferring power from the federal government back to the states and the people. A complete list is available on his campaign website.

Gingrich announced he plans to challenge Democratic President Obama to seven Lincoln-Douglas style three-hour debates. He will be debating Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain Saturday in Houston on Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, Gingrich said, and the debate will be televised on CSPAN. Also, Gingrich said he would like to engage GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney in a debate on the economy and the size of government.

“What I really want the Republican team to understand,” Gingrich said, however, “is that our real opponent is Barack Obama.”

Since leaving Washington, Gingrich has written several best-selling books and served as a regular political commentator and an analyst on television news. He is the founder and/or chair of American Solutions for Winning the Future, Center for Health Transformation, Gingrich Productions. and Renewing American Leadership.


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