Newt wants the Medicare changes to be optional, not compulsory

While much -- much -- has been written of Newt's appearance on Meet the Press Sunday and his criticism of Paul Ryan's proposed changes to Medicare, the journalists and others have missed a very important part of the story.

Newt does not oppose changing Medicare; instead, he wants seniors to have an option. Newt and Ryan both want to modify Medicare, making it a premium support system, but whereas Ryan forces seniors to buy private insurance, Newt would allow seniors to use the subsidies to purchase private insurance or stay in the traditional government-run insurance.

Much like how conservatives have proposed making any flat tax proposals optional -- so as to avoid political blowback and make important, needed reforms possible -- Newt is doing the same with Medicare. The current Ryan budget -- which is great policy -- is proving to be a headache for many House Republicans.

Newt's optional change to Medicare should not have been such a shock to people. On an April 20 Facebook post, Newt explained he wanted to "allow seniors to choose, on a voluntary basis, a more personal system with greater options for better care."

Many of the conservatives going after Newt today have intimated that it is contradictory for Gingrich to have said he would have voted for Ryan's budget -- and calling it "brave" -- and yet criticizing it. Which means that anyone who criticizes any piece of legislation cannot ultimately vote for it. That's nonsense.

John McCormack of The Weekly Standard writes:

I pointed out that Paul Ryan doesn't see much difference between his plan and what Gingrich was calling for on April 20, and Gingrich's spokesman agreed. "There is little daylight between Ryan and Gingrich," he wrote. "But look how it gets reported. Newt would fully support Ryan if it were not compulsory. We need to design a better system that people will voluntarily move to. That is a major difference in design but not substance."

But if there's "little daylight" between the two, why did Gingrich call Ryan's plan "radical" and "social engineering"?

"Radical means that politically you can't get to what Ryan wants from where we are," wrote Tyler. "It will be demagogued to death. Right wing social engineer refers simply to compelling people to participate without giving them a choice. That is a political mistake."

The biggest political mistake involving the issue was done by the House Republican leadership holding a vote on the issue, which exposed vulnerable members to the political heat -- when there was absolutely no chance of it passing with the current Senate and President.

Newt will hold a dozen events in Iowa next week

Carmen Cox of ABC has the following details of Newt's next week:

At 8 a.m. Friday in Washington at the Fairmont Hotel, he will give an economics speech sponsored by Laffer Associates -- as in Arthur Laffer, creator of the Laffer Curve and the godfather of supply side economics. On Friday night, Newt will give his first official campaign speech in Atlanta.

On Saturday, he'll be in Illinois to give the commencement speech at Ronald Reagan's alma mater, Eureka College. On Sunday, Gingrich will appear on Meet the Press.

Newt will then spend almost all of next week in Iowa -- a dozen campaign events spread out over Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. On Wednesday, he'll head across the border for an event in Minnesota.

The speech in front of Laffer's group is interesting. While it sounds like it isn't an official endorsement, it might be a sign that Laffer -- and other supply-siders -- are not too crazy about the other candidates. CNBC host Larry Kudlow, another influential supply-sider, recently had Newt on his TV and radio shows as well as participated in an American Solutions workshop in 2008.

Cox continues:

Gingrich's campaign organization has already started to take shape. He's already secured space for his campaign headquarters in Atlanta and will soon have a campaign office opening in northern Virginia. And he's hired a campaign manager: 36-year-old Rob Johnson who, most recently, ran Governor Rick Perry's reelection campaign in Texas.

The former Speaker of the House will position himself as the experienced conservative: he's the only candidate who can say he personally fought for and delivered a balanced federal budget, tax cuts, and welfare reform -- all signed into law by President Bill Clinton.

"The response to inexperience should be experience," says Gingrich spokesman Rick Tyler.

Quick Hits

MFrom the New York Times:

Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, is one of the biggest variables. Mr. Gingrich has not been openly buttonholing major donors for a presidential bid, fund-raisers said. Nevertheless, all the work he has been doing for his policy center, American Solutions, generating large contributions (the group is permitted to take in donations of unlimited size) and building donor lists, could form a strong financial foundation for a run.

From National Journal:

On NBC's 'Meet the Press,' former House GOP Speaker Newt Gingrich said that he would make a decision about running 'around February,' and that if he did decide to seek the presidency he would probably announce in 'late March.' Gingrich said he expected a full Republican field of 12 to 15 candidates, and he predicted 'you will not know who the (GOP) nominee is until very late in the spring of 2012.' Gingrich added that President Obama remains personally popular and that he would not be easy to defeat. 'This president has enormous capacity' to recover politically, said Gingrich. He cautioned that Obama 'is not beaten.'