Is this Rosemary's Baby all grown up?
I have always thought that Newt Gingrich was a bit odd. I thought his Contract With America plan in the 90's was pure corporate-friendly puffball showboating. The Gingrich-led 1994 takeover of Congress quickly went to Newt's head like a good bong hit….leading his self-pumped ego to threaten Bill Clinton, a popular president, with a shutdown of the federal government. The Newton, properly spanked by a much smarter, and more popular president, lost credibility….and power…and his Speaker position….and he hasn't, really, ever recovered.
Despite this relatively recent Gingrich crash and burn fun…..conservatives, when asked about who in the GOP has any, you know, good ideas…..ideas for a modern America, post-Junior….point to Newt Gingrich. He's the Republican Party's "intellectual", he's the one conservative with well-thought out ideas, ideas that, somehow, will capture the imagination of a modern nation.
At Americansolutions.com, Gingrich lists his newly released, "12 American Solutions for Jobs and Prosperity", plan, presumably, to counter the recently-passed Reinvestment and Recovery Act championed by Barack Obama. Notice that even in Newt's title here, he can't help being the ideological prick that he really has always been. Notice that Gingrich's list is not entitled, "12 Solutions for Jobs and Prosperity",….it's 12 AMERICAN Solutions. You know, rather than Obama's "European" solutions, because as Sarah Palin has told the country numerous times, Obama is a socialist at heart, his thinking seen in those dangerous socialist nations of western Europe and (gasp) Canada, who have risked their entire existence by providing health care for all their citizens.
Here's Newt Gingrich's 12 Solutions….
1) Payroll Tax Stimulus. With a temporary new tax credit to offset 50% of the payroll tax, every small business would have more money, and all Americans would take home more of what they earn.
2) Real Middle-Income Tax Relief. Reduce the marginal tax rate of 25% down to 15%, in effect establishing a flat-rate tax of 15% for close to 9 out of 10 American workers.
3) Reduce the Business Tax Rate. Match Ireland’s rate of 12.5% to keep more jobs in America.
4) Homeowner’s Assistance. Provide tax credit incentives to responsible home buyers so they can keep their homes.
5) Control Spending So We Can Move to a Balanced Budget. This begins with eliminating Congressional earmarks and wasteful pork-barrel spending.
6) No State Aid Without Protection From Fraud. Require state governments to adopt anti-fraud and anti-theft policies before giving them more money.
7) More American Energy Now. Explore for more American oil and gas and invest in affordable energy for the future, including clean coal, ethanol, nuclear power and renewable fuels.
Abolish Taxes on Capital Gains. Match China, Singapore and many other competitors. More investment in America means more jobs in America.
9) Protect the Rights of American Workers. We must protect a worker’s right to decide by secret ballot whether to join a union, and the worker’s right to freely negotiate. Forced unionism will kill jobs in America at a time when we can’t afford to lose them.
10) Replace Sarbanes-Oxley. This failed law is crippling entrepreneurial startups. Replace it with affordable rules that help create jobs, not destroy them.
11) Abolish the Death Tax. Americans should work for their families, not for Washington.
12) Invest in Energy and Transportation Infrastructure. This includes a new, expanded electric power grid and a 21st century air traffic control system that will reduce delays in air travel and save passengers, employees and airlines billions of dollars per year.
Translation: 6 of 12 (1-4,8,11) "solutions" are tax cuts. 50% of Newt's plan, and he's the "intellectual" of the GOP, consists of the same "solutions" that George W. Bush and his former-majority Republicans, not to be confused with intellectuals, implemented with his radical cutting of taxes, mainly advantaging the wealthiest. How did those Bush tax cuts, historic in nature, restore "jobs and prosperity" to America? They didn't.
2 of Newtie's 12 (7&12) "solutions", power grid expansion and investing in affordable energy, Obama has included in his Recovery Act and his budget proposal. Copying off of smarter kids' work can make you seem "intelligent" at the time….but we know what usually happens in the long term.
#9 is anti-union worker…..and a boldface lie. Newt, and all those who kneel before Big Money, know that Card Check (EFCA) doesn't eliminate secret ballots. It just doesn't. So they lie and deceive.
#5, controlling spending and earmarks, is a bit hypocritical in light of all the Republican presidents in my lifetime and their problem with deficits, and trivial in light of earmarks making up less than 1% of Obama's budget. Obama has proposed halving the Bush deficit in 4 years through…wait for it….controlling spending.
#6, "No State Aid Without Protection From Fraud", seems like an attempt to slow down any economic improvement that may result from Obama's stimulus program. Muck up the state machinery with new red tape in the hopes that the federal stimulus will not succeed. All in the name of "fraud protection."
Finally, number 10. Extensive deregulation of the financial industry produced the depression we're in right now. So, naturally, the "intellectual idea man", Newt Gingrich, wants to deregulate even more. Remember Enron? Arthur Andersen? Sarbanes-Oxley was in response to all that brilliant and succesful "creative accounting" and "off balance sheet" intellectualism that came out of Enron….smartest guys in the room and all. Gingrich, full of new ideas, wants Sarbanes-Oxley revoked.
I'm just sayin'….if these are the Republicans' "solutions for jobs and prosperity", and I don't see any others, then the Jews 40 years of wandering in the wilderness will seem like a walk around the block in comparison to the GOP's self-exile to the fringes of irrelevance.
