One of the prime architects of the Republican Revolution says conservatives need to rally around real reforms to maintain power. Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich shared his ideas with Carolina Journal, on the eve of today’s John Locke Foundation Headliner luncheon in Charlotte.
“I think we have a lot of wrong tracks right now, and there’s a lot of change we need to make to get back to the patterns that worked for Reagan and that worked with the Contract with America,” Gingrich said in an exclusive interview. “I think a happy-talk, avoid-the-hard-work, don’t-make-the-changes conservatism is inevitably going to fail.”
Gingrich and fellow Republicans used a platform called the Contract with America to help them win the 1994 elections. Those elections secured GOP control of the U.S. House, which Gingrich led as Speaker from 1995 to 1998.
Out of office for more than seven years, he’s now pushing for a 21st century Contract with America. It’s the subject of his recent book Winning the Future.
Gingrich shared ideas from the book during a luncheon speech today at the Westin Charlotte. More than 400 people heard him speak.
He also focused on a document labeled the “Scale of Challenge.” It outlines challenges linked to issues such as scientific development, the economic rise of China and India, the aging American population, border security, and growing government bureaucracies.
Those themes echo his book — which is based on the idea that America faces several major threats. “Let me give you three quick examples,” Gingrich said in the CJ interview, “the threat of the courts trying to create a secular America that forgets that our rights come from our Creator, the threat of the lack of border security and illegal immigration, and the threat of the irreconcilable wing of Islam trying to destroy us — literally destroy us.”
Secular judges pose a serious challenge to the nation’s future, Gingrich said. “We have a lot of secular judges who completely misrepresent the history of America, who want to take — for example, “One nation under God” — out of the Pledge of Allegiance, who believe that you can’t have a cross on a historic monument in San Diego,” he said. “These things are nonsense. They are a direct assault on American history.”
In another section of his new Contract with America, Gingrich focuses on border security. “It is a terrible risk for the U.S. to have people crossing the border without knowing who they are,” he said. “And we’ve had this recent focus on a North Korean missile potentially threatening us. But if the North Koreans could rent a truck in Mexico and drive it across the border, all the money we’re spending on missile defense is wasted.”
“So we have to get control of the border,” Gingrich added. “We have to recognize that the word ‘illegal’ is the key word in the term ‘illegal immigrant.’ If you break the law to get here, I think there’s a real question about how you’re structuring citizenship for the future.”
Gingrich also stresses the importance of the English language. “We have to insist that to become an American citizen, you must pass a test on American history in English,” he said. “I would abolish multilingual ballots because government and politics in America should be in English.”
The American people also need to realize they are facing the prospect of a long war against the “irreconcilable wing of Islam,” Gingrich said. “We’re going to be in a war that could last 50 to 70 years with the people who would not allow women to be in public meetings; the people who would impose the Shari’a, which is a medieval Islamic law; the people who believe that it’s alright for a father to kill his wife or daughter — or for a son to kill his mother or sister — because honor killings are a legitimate part of that world view,” he said. “These are folks we are not compatible with, and one side or the other is going to win. And I think we should pick us.”
In his book, the former U.S. House speaker says it’s reasonable to believe the war could last until 2070. “I’m not talking now about Iraq or Afghanistan,” he told CJ. “I’m talking about the total war. When you learn that there are 18 terrorists arrested in Canada, there were seven terrorists arrested in Miami the other day, the British Home Secretary has said he thinks they have 20 terror organizations in Britain — with maybe as many as 1,200 terrorists — this is going to be a long, painful, difficult struggle.
“I think the American people can get used to that, and they can deal with it, and they can support their government in winning it,” Gingrich said. “But they need to be told the realities of what’s coming down the road. And we need to make the decision that we’re going to win, that it’s important for our civilization. I have two grandchildren: Maggie, who’s six, and Robert, who’s four. I want them to live in the strongest, safest, freest country in the world. And that’s going to take real effort and real change on our part.”
Speaking of change, elected leaders need to reform what Gingrich labels in his book an “absurdly bloated, undisciplined federal government” that has created a “national scandal” with its spending practices.
“I think the Congress and the president have to get serious about real change,” he said in the interview. “Part of the Katrina emergency funding paid for a sex change operation. Now that’s absurd. Part of the funding for Katrina paid for 72 days in a Hawaiian hotel. It was clever of somebody to figure it out, but it’s stupid for the U.S. government to do it, and it’s outrageous for the taxpayers to have to pay for it.
“One person filed under 13 different Social Security Numbers — all using the same address — and was paid I think $139,000,” he added. “And nobody at Social Security runs a computer that is modern enough to have instantly picked up that you just got 13 Social Security Numbers from the same address getting money.
“I mean the degree to which the current bureaucracy is broken, obsolete, and out of touch with the modern world is breathtaking,” Gingrich said. “And the Congress and the president have to tackle it head on.”
Beyond the budget, Congress and the administration need to pursue other changes, Gingrich said. “If you know as a fact that only 21 percent of the entering freshmen in Detroit graduate – and that’s assuming that the diploma’s worth something – that still means that four out of five young people in Detroit are being cheated and are being faced with probably going to prison or probably being unemployed or probably ending up on welfare,” he said. “In the information age in a global market, if you can’t even get through high school, you have a big challenge earning a decent living. Now that’s a fact.
“That requires real change,” Gingrich added. “And I think conservatives ought to be advocating real reforms. We need to fix Social Security now before the baby boomers bankrupt it. We need to transform health care now before Medicaid gets so expensive. It’s already projected to be six times as expensive as Social Security. We need a real energy strategy for renewable fuels, conservation, for the use of nuclear power, for things that will enable us to become relatively independent from Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and Russia. And we need that now. So these are all changes. And I think that a Reagan, Contract with America-style, change-oriented conservatism could easily be the governing majority.”
Gingrich’s ideas might sound like a presidential platform. He’s not ruling out the possibility of a White House run in 2008. He’ll visit early caucus state Iowa this summer.
“If you want to shape the ideas of America’s future, you start by shaping them in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina,” Gingrich said. “And if you can do that, then everybody else who’s trying to run for president — or everybody who’s a reporter trying to cover the campaign — is going to pick up what you’re doing.
“So we’re trying to very systematically lay the base of how to win the future and how to create a movement for winning the future,” he said. “And I think that if that does in fact take off and people do decide they want real change and they want real reform, then probably in October or November of next year, I would consider running. But I think from now until then I want to focus on communicating the ideas and the solutions and not just focus on personal ambition.”
Mitch Kokai is associate editor of Carolina Journal.