Peter Ferrara on Newt's judicial reform plan

An excerpt from Peter Ferrara:

And if those judges refuse to apply the law objectively as written, and instead engage in judicial activism making up their own law based on their own liberal/left values, then they are applauded by the liberal/left media and academia. The rest of us can go pound sand.

At least that is the view of the New York Times, the Washington Post, the bar association, and the law schools. They are the ultimate authority and rulers in America under this doctrine of judicial supremacy. Any other view is dangerous to our most fundamental liberties, they tell us (at least while the judges reflect their liberal/left views).

But not according to Newt Gingrich, the Founding Fathers, and American history. To these authorities, it is judicial supremacy that is dangerous to our most fundamental liberties.

And another:

Gingrich recalls the actual checks and balances on the judiciary established by our Founding Fathers, who recognized the dangers of judicial supremacy. Jefferson wrote in challenging such judicial supremacy in 1820, "You seem to consider the judges the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions; a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy." Jefferson further wrote later that year, "The judiciary of the United States is the subtle corps of sappers and miners constantly working underground to undermine our Constitution from a co-ordinate of a general and special government to a general supreme one alone. This will lay all things at their feet."

Please read the full thing here.

And here is Newt's position paper on judicial reform.

The 21st Century Contract "probably the most thorough campaign document ever"

Peter Ferrara, a Reagan White House official, writes about the Texas Tea Party debate between Newt and Cain today.

And after calling the 21st Century Contract with America "probably the most thorough campaign document ever," Ferrara writes:

Gingrich proposes freedom for younger workers to choose to save and invest at least part of what they would otherwise pay in payroll or income taxes into personal savings, investment and insurance accounts. Over an entire working career, at just standard, long term, market investment returns, workers of all family combinations and income levels would accumulate several hundred thousand dollars in these accounts after inflation, approaching a million dollars or even more in some cases depending on how big the option is over their careers.

Those accumulated funds would pay all workers of all income levels much higher benefits than Social Security even promises let alone what it could pay. Retirees would each be free to choose to leave any portion of these funds to their children at death.

Further:

Gingrich's explicit long-term vision is to expand these accounts over time so they ultimately finance all of the benefits now financed by the payroll tax, eventually allowing that tax to be phased out entirely. That would be the greatest reduction in taxes in world history. The debate audience expressed strong enthusiasm for such personal accounts.

On block granting welfare programs back to the states:

Gingrich also drew attention to an historic turning point in welfare policy that was achieved while he was Speaker, with the enormously successful 1996 reforms of the old Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program. Those reforms implemented the ultimate welfare policies favored by President Reagan and his long time welfare guru Robert Carleson.

...

Gingrich proposed, with assent from Cain, to extend the same reforms to all remaining federal means-tested welfare programs. This would amount to sending welfare back to the states, achieving the complete welfare reform dream of Reagan and Carleson in restoring the original federalism and state control over welfare. It also follows the spirit of the Tea Party in restoring power to the states and gaining control over government spending, deficits and debt. The audience at the debate expressed strong support for this as well.

...

With all the programs of the current welfare empire estimated together to cost $10 trillion over the next 10 years, the resulting savings to the taxpayers from these reforms would be several trillion just in those first 10 years alone, as the 1996 reforms indicate.

On health care, Ferrara writes:

Gingrich proposes that the problem of the uninsured can and should be solved through a health care safety net focused on the truly needy, assuring that no one will suffer lack of essential health care, for just a small fraction of the cost of Obamacare. He explains that this can and should be accomplished with no individual mandate and no employer mandate.

That would begin by block granting Medicaid to the states as above, which Gingrich and Cain both strongly supported.

On health savings accounts: "Gingrich pioneered HSA legislation while Speaker, and explicitly favors extending them throughout the health care system."

On Paul Ryan's plan:

Gingrich also explicitly favored the Ryan plan for Medicare, if it is offered as a free choice for seniors, rather than a mandatory imposed change. With such freedom alone, seniors will be fleeing old Medicare, butchered by Obamacare cuts to payments to doctors and hospitals, and the further cuts and rationing imposed by the Independent Payment Advisory Board. The Gingrich plan also involves eventually a personal account for the Medicare payroll tax, which would finance a private sector annuity in retirement providing further funds to buy private insurance, besides Ryan's premium support.

You can read the rest of the article, which is great good, here.

Peter Ferrara on 21st Century Contract with America

Peter Ferrara, who was in the Reagan White House, wrote a terrific article about Newt's 21st Century Contract with America. Some excerpts:

In the 1994 Congressional campaigns, Republicans not only rode Newt's Contract with America proposals to Republican majorities in Congress. They maintained their House majority for 12 years, after Republicans had only held a House majority for 2 of the previous 74 years.

Newt's 21st century contract is similarly a document on which the entire Republican Party can campaign next year, and win a generation of governing majorities.

Gingrich's economic recovery plan would also abolish the capital gains tax, because "At a zero percent rate, hundreds of billions of dollars in new investments would pour into the United States to create new firms and build new factories." By effectively double-taxing capital income, the capital gains levy discourages the venture capital that feeds start-ups and creates jobs. That is why 14 out of 30 OECD countries, plus China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and others, already enjoy zero capital gains taxes. Gingrich's Contract would further eliminate double taxation by abolishing the death tax and the Alternative Minimum Tax.

Art Laffer, a central architect of Reaganomics, says regarding Gingrich's economic recovery plan, "The combination of pro-growth tax reform, spending restraint, and sound money will restore robust economic growth with low unemployment and low inflation," and praises "the powerful effect it will have on the future growth path of the United States economy." Indeed, Gingrich has the formula for another generation long economic boom achieved by freeing a dynamic economy that is straining to break out of the bonds of Obamanomics.

Ferrara quotes from Newt what the former will push for after repealing Obamacare:

I will advocate for specific replacement health policies that will create a free market framework for health care, provide affordable, portable, and reliable healthcare coverage, and establish a health care safety net focused on those in need. This system will assure health care for all with no individual mandate or employer mandate of any kind. This alternative to Obamacare begins with patient power and localism and the many common sense ideas developed over the past eight years at the Center for Health Transformation.

Back to Ferrara:

The specific Contract proposals implementing this vision include "a voluntary option for younger Americans to put a portion of their Social Security contribution into personal Social Security savings accounts.

On Medicare, Ferrara again quotes from Newt:

My proposed legislation will offer seniors new choices in Medicare, as well. It will give them the option to choose, on a voluntary basis, either to remain in the existing program, or to transition to a more personalized system in the private sector with greater options for better care. If they select the personalized system, beneficiaries would receive support to cover their private sector premiums. Giving all seniors the option to choose their insurance provider will improve price competition and help lower costs for the program.

More Newt:

There are 184 other means-tested entitlement programs that can be block granted in a similar manner to our reform in 1996. One program alone -- Medicaid -- could save the federal government over $700 billion in the next decade, according to Congressman Paul Ryan's 2012 Republican Budget. Not only would these programs be more responsive and dynamic on a state level, but Americans would save hundreds of billions of federal tax dollars every year.

Ferrara concludes the piece:

Gingrich's Contract advances other path-breaking ideas, such as using Congress's powers to reorganize the federal judiciary and regulate the jurisdiction of the federal courts, including the Supreme Court, to rein in judicial activism, enforcing the Tenth Amendment, and unleashing the private sector to produce the maximum in American energy. Most exciting, Newt's Contract launches all of these ideas into the mainstream of the Republican Party.

While it probably seems like I quoted the whole article, there is a ton I didn't. I encourage you to read the entire article here.

Ferrara has wrote other pieces praising Newt's ideas -- here, here, and here.

Peter Ferrara: "Redeeming Newt"

From his article in The American Spectator:

Newt Gingrich is so right in urging his own "Leadership Now" theme for the Republican House majority. He argues that the House should not wait for the debt reduction Super Committee before passing legislation to address federal spending, the deficit, economic growth, and jobs. The House should show leadership now by passing legislation that will achieve these goals most effectively, demonstrating to the public what conservative Republican victories in the elections next year would accomplish.

On block-granting Medicaid:

Gingrich raises a popular entitlement reform opportunity based on the enormously successful 1996 reforms of the old Aid to Families with Dependent Children program (AFDC), enacted while Gingrich was Speaker of the House.

Those reforms sent the federal financing for the program back to the states in fixed, finite block grants, with states empowered to redesign new welfare programs for the poor -- based on work. If a state's program cost more than its federal allotment, then it had to pay all of the extra costs itself. If its program cost lest, then it could keep the resulting savings.

With new incentives for the states, two-thirds of those on AFDC left the program for real private sector jobs. Their incomes rose by at least one fourth as a result, leading them out of poverty. And costs for the taxpayers dropped by half or more in real dollars compared to prior trends.

Those same reforms can and should be extended to Medicaid and all other federal means-tested welfare programs. Those programs are estimated to cost $10 trillion in total government spending over the next 10 years. The Republican House should act now to pass legislation effectively sending all those programs back to the states with block grants providing the discretion for the states to each enact a completely new welfare system based on work, as Gingrich suggested. That kind of Tea Party federalism would be enormously popular, as would the potential savings of $5 trillion over 10 years. Based on the 1996 reforms of AFDC, the poor would benefit enormously as well.

On energy and federal land:

Gingrich also proposes legislation to increase revenue from oil and gas exploration and drilling through sharply increased federal leases and permits. That could raise $150 billion over roughly 10 years, with more coming from increased economic growth due to more abundant supplies of low cost energy for businesses. Gingrich also proposes to sell federally owned land and other unused and environmentally insignificant federal assets.

Lean Six Sigma:

Gingrich is also pioneering the application of proven business efficiency and waste cutting methodologies known as Lean Six Sigma to government programs and agencies. Instead of waiting for the dangerously centralized Super Committee to develop plans for remaking the entire federal government, Gingrich argues that all 435 members of the House in almost 200 committees and subcommittees should be involved in developing ways to apply Lean Six Sigma business principles to government management, with potential cost savings of over $5 trillion. Gingrich argues that another $700 billion to $1.2 trillion over 10 years could be realized by applying the fraud detection techniques utilized by credit card companies to root out fraud in Medicare and Medicaid.

Ferrara concludes:

If the Republican House can act expeditiously to pass all of these ideas, and send them on to the do-nothing Democrat Senate, then Republicans can take these issues to the people next year, clearly defined.

And they can thank Newt Gingrich​ for many of them.

I have wrote about Ferrara's praise for Newt's ideas here and here.

The media claims Pawlenty was the first to unveil an economic plan

In a speech yesterday, Tim Pawlenty outlined his economic plan. It is quite good -- though much of it is similar to the one Newt gave a speech unveiling on May 13. Notice the date Newt released his plan -- May 13, almost a month ago -- because the media obviously doesn't notice the date.

The mainstream media, even some mainstream conservative outlets, spent yesterday and this morning talking about how Pawlenty was the first Republican to have a plan on the economy. As should be expected, Newt's camp wanted to set the record straight.

Newt's spokesman, Rick Tyler, tweeted that one of the members of the Wall Street Journal editorial page, Stephen Moore, was at the very speech in which Newt laid out his nine-point plan.

POLITICO:

"Apparently, according to the Journal, its editorial board neither looked at nor has seen Gingrich’s jobs and prosperity plan, even though one of its members was present when he revealed it," Tyler told POLITICO. "It’s posted on our website and it’s been distributed to hundreds if not thousands of political reporters."

Kendra Marr: "Though the Journal apparently hasn’t been impressed, Investors Business Daily’s editorial board gave Gingrich an “A” grade for the plan, calling it “one of the most laudable economic plans in memory.”

Marr doesn't mention it, but as I have written about, Peter Ferrara has called it the best reform plan of any of the candidates.

Art Laffer, vital to the Reagan economic policies and the man who hosted the speech Newt laid out his plan in, said of the plan: "The combination of pro-growth tax reform, spending restraint, and sound money will restore robust economic growth with low unemployment and low inflation."

In which I forgot to post Investor's Business Daily calling Newt's economic plan "one of the most laudable economic plans in memory"

When someone asked me today on Twitter why he should support Newt, I responded that two reasons I was is that Peter Ferrara and Investor's Business Daily have called Newt's economic plan the best among the candidates. When I went to look for the links, however, I realized that while I posted about Ferrara, I had not about IBD. I had simply re-tweeted their article.

So while it is a bit of old news -- all of two weeks old -- here are some excerpts from their editorial titled "A Solid A For Gingrich's Economic Plan":

Still, all of this and more can be forgiven if Newt spends the coming months proving he's serious about the audacious five-point economic plan he has just unveiled — the best reform program of any of the presidential candidates.

Its most important feature is the elimination of -- not just a reduction in -- the capital gains tax. It can't be stressed enough the kind of positive effect such a long-overdue step would have on a battered, post-financial-crisis private sector. This would be a real economic stimulus, costing just a pittance in government revenues and generating millions of new jobs.

Tiny Hong Kong became the economic powerhouse of Asia by recognizing that a zero tax on capital encourages and attracts massive amounts of private investment. Domestic and foreign capital would pour into the U.S. if Gingrich's plan were enacted.

There's also a too-seldom-made moral argument against capital gains taxes. What Americans own — from equities to real estate and everything in between -- is not "income" and should not be taxed when it happens to increase in value.

...

The rest of the Gingrich economic plan is just as praiseworthy: a no-new-taxes pledge, full deduction of capital expenses, a huge cut in our highest-in-the-world corporate tax and abolition of the estate tax.

Equally bold, he would repeal ObamaCare, scrap the torturous Sarbanes-Oxley corporate regulatory regime, abolish the National Labor Relations Board and "replace" the Environmental Protection Agency -- which hopefully goes well beyond renaming it.

As Gingrich told CNBC, his plan comes straight out of "the Reagan playbook" and "would move us toward a very dramatic job growth," lessening government dependency and practicing fiscal restraint -- exactly what the Tea Party movement demands.

Also, for anyone who has yet to see it, here is the CNBC interview IBD refers to:

Link.

Peter Ferrara: Newt would "restore booming, long-term, job-creating economic growth"

Conservative policy expert Peter Ferrara attended Newt's speech in front of Art Laffer's group. Laffer, who was instrumental in the Reagan administration's economic policies, said of the speech: "The combination of pro-growth tax reform, spending restraint, and sound money will restore robust economic growth with low unemployment and low inflation," notes Ferrara.

Ferrara, who "served in the White House Office of Policy Development under President Reagan," applauds the tax reforms Newt is proposing -- such as an optional 15% flat tax on personal income, a 12.5% corporate tax rate, the elimination of the capital gains tax, abolishing the death tax, and ending all forms of double taxation. "Gingrich's plan also provides for 100% expensing of investment in new equipment so American workers can work with the most technologically advanced tools in the most advanced factories in the world," Ferrara writes.

Ferrara:

But the Gingrich plan goes beyond tax policy. He would reverse the fundamental Bush blunder of a cheap dollar policy, which pumped up the housing bubble with loose monetary policy. That blunder has been multiplied many times over under Obama, just as Obama has done with everything that Bush did wrong. Gingrich proposes instead to return to the Reagan-era, stable dollar monetary policies that halted the runaway inflation of the 1970s, never to be heard from again, until recently. He also proposes fundamental Fed reform to provide for transparency of all Fed activities, and permanently end bailout abuses.

He continues with Newt's plan for removing job-killing regulations:

Another major component of the plan is deregulation. Gingrich proposes to outright repeal Sarbanes-Oxley, which only adds unnecessary costs that have deterred job-creating investment in the United States and undermined the international competitiveness of America's financial industry. He proposes to repeal as well the Community Reinvestment Act, which was abused to help cause the financial crisis. He called as well for breaking up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and moving their smaller successors off government guarantees and into the free market.

Underlining his opposition to any cap and trade policies, Gingrich proposed to replace the Environmental Protection Agency with an Environmental Solutions Agency. That is to achieve a fundamental change in environmental policies from anti-growth confrontation with industry to collaboration with job creators to achieve better overall results. He also proposes to modernize the Food and Drug Administration, recognizing the need to get lifesaving medicines and technologies to patients faster, and to remove cost barriers to their rapid development.

Deregulation is also central to the American energy policy Gingrich also advocated. Even at the height of Obamamania in the summer and fall of 2008, Gingrich's "Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less" campaign was instrumental in leading then President Bush to rescind the Executive Order banning offshore drilling, and Congress to let the statutory offshore drilling ban expire. Gingrich last Friday called for freeing the energy industry to maximize production of all forms of American energy, from oil to natural gas to clean coal to nuclear power to all forms of alternative fuels. That would assure the reliable supply of low cost energy essential to fueling a booming economy.

On government spending, Ferrara writes:

Gingrich also called for a balanced budget, first through restoring booming economic growth that would revive surging revenues and itself reduce spending obligations. But that would also involve sharp spending reductions and money-saving reforms that were specified in detail in his 2010 book To Save America, similar to the policies adopted by the Republican Congressional majorities he led in the 1990s to balance the budget then, as discussed further below.

That would also include fundamental entitlement reforms. In To Save America, Gingrich explicitly called for each worker to have the freedom to choose personal savings, investment, and insurance accounts eventually to finance all of the Social Security and Medicare benefits now financed by the payroll tax, eventually displacing that tax entirely. He also called for sending all federal welfare programs back to the states with the same welfare block grant reforms adopted in 1996, as also discussed below. The reduction in federal spending that would ultimately result from such reforms would be unprecedented.

One of the money quotes from Ferrara: "Just as Reaganomics created a record-smashing, world-leading, 25-year economic boom, the comprehensive economic policies Gingrich advanced last Friday would in my opinion restore booming, long-term, job-creating economic growth to America.

Ferrara on Newt's record as Speaker of the House:

Gingrich's record as Speaker of the House in the 1990s provides a strong foundation of credibility for these policies. His famed budget clash with President Clinton leading to a government shutdown resulted in policies that not only balanced the budget but produced $560 billion in budget surpluses over four years from 1998 to 2001. That resulted from cutting rather than increasing tax rates, most particularly a nearly 30% cut in capital gains rates, and sharply restrained spending that allowed revenues from the growing economy to surge past spending.

Total federal discretionary spending, as well as the subcategory of non-defense discretionary spending, declined from 1995 to 1996 in actual nominal dollars. By 2000, total federal discretionary spending was still about the same as it was in 1995 in constant dollars. As a percent of GDP, federal discretionary spending was slashed by 17.5% in just four years, from 1995 to 1999. Total federal spending relative to GDP declined from 1995 to 2000 by 12.5%, a reduction in the federal government relative to the economy of about one-eighth in just five short years.

This was accomplished in part by important entitlement reforms. The New Deal era Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program was sent back to the states with federal spending on the program limited to finite block grants for each state that remained flat in nominal terms for at least a dozen years, saving taxpayers hundreds of billions over that time from prior trends. Two-thirds of those on the program went to work as a result, and enjoyed a 25% increase in family income. Gingrich also led adoption of Freedom to Farm, which provided for a phase-out of New Deal era farm subsidies.

It was after Gingrich retired as Speaker and Bush was elected that the Republicans lost control of spending, more than reversing the Gingrich gains with a one-seventh increase in government spending relative to GDP. The Congress ditched Freedom to Farm, although the AFDC block grants survived because they were so undeniably so successful.

Gingrich successfully led a national revolution against the Democrats before, rising from the backbenches of the House to guiding a persistent Republican takeover of Congress for the first time in 70 years, continuing for a dozen years. Can he do that again?

Ferrara, back in November, also was very complimentary of Newt. My post on that can be read here.

Peter Ferrara details A Newt Vision for America

In a laudatory article about Newt Gingrich, the normally calm and stoic Peter Ferrara sounds like...well, me. Ferrara, director of entitlement and budget policy at the Institute for Policy Innovation, was in the Reagan and Bush 41 administrations. He is typically a policy wonk, his signature proposal being to personalize Social Security.

However, in the first paragraph, Ferrara writes after watching the former Speaker at an event, "Gingrich is the only political leader in America today who, after you hear him speak, leaves you feeling like you learned something new, or, maybe even that a whole new perspective or vision has been opened for you. In fact, his speech at this dinner is this generation's modern equivalent of Reagan's famous CPAC speech of 1975."

Ferrara recounts a story Newt has told many times -- that of his childhood experience of visiting the battlefield of Verdun and deciding that instead of possibly becoming a zookeeper that he would enter public service. Ferrara quotes Gingrich:

I came out of it convinced that countries die. And that the quality of civilian leadership is central to their survival…. I concluded that my job was to try to understand three things: what is it we have to do to survive as a country, how would you explain it with such clarity that the American people would give you permission to do it, and how would you then implement it in such a way that it both worked and they would give you permission to continue. I've literally now, for 52 years, been trying to understand this.

The theme of Gingrich's speech at the event was replacing a "rejection model" of conservatism with a "replacement model." To illustrate what he meant, he used the analogy of the birth of the nation. The Declaration of Independence rejected the British, but "that didn't make us independent," said Gingrich. "We declared our opinion. In order to be successful and independent, there had to be two enormous acts of replacement."

The first was military: "But it was the replacement of British military power with American military power which made the difference." And the second was replacing the Articles of Confederation with the Constitution.

After citing the many electoral rejections the left has suffered -- from George McGovern to this year's mid-term elections -- Newt wrote:

The Left didn't notice it because the power of the Left isn't in popular elections. The power of the Left is in tenured academics. The power of the Left is the news media. The power of the Left is the bureaucracy. The power of the Left is union leadership. The power of the Left is inside the judgeships. The power of the Left is in the Hollywood literati. And so the Left just kept going further Left....The fact is rejection is an inadequate, long term strategy if you are serious about saving America, because rejection doesn't fix a center left coalition, which has been in power since 1932. And that requires us to adopt, I believe, a fundamentally new strategy: a strategy of replacement. We have to look at every level of American society, and every level of American government, and we have to decide that we are going to replace the Left, with policies, systems, and institutions that reflect the heart of the American tradition.

As Ferrara put it, Gingrich then lays out the "long term goal and vision":

And where we have to go is a goal to create a majority that's governed so decisively, with such positive results, that in January, 2021, we are inaugurating a team which understands why it is continuing a center-right majority, understands why it is continuing a prosperous America, understands why it's continuing a safe America, and understands why it is continuing the most free society in history. And only if you think out to that achievement, can you understand the challenge of the next two years, because this is an enormously complex country.

"Notice the emphasis on the word continuing, which I am explaining as a President Palin or Jindal being inaugurated after eight enormously successful years of a President Gingrich, similar to the eight enormously successful years of President Reagan," says Ferrara. "That is the magnitude of the long-term roadmap to victory for the conservative movement that Gingrich spells out in this speech."

Writing of " the accomplished practical record and standing that Gingrich has in setting this long term goal for the conservative movement," Ferrara further quotes Newt, who made a similar point when Fox News interviewed him for their 12 in 2012 special:

Now some people will tell you, there's Gingrich having these wild ideas. I think it is fair to say, if you look at my career, from helping create the Georgia Republican Party, which now occupies every statewide elected position, and controls both houses of the State Legislature, and the majority of state Congressional seats, to creating the first [Republican Congressional] majority in forty years, and the first re-elected [Republican Congressional] majority since 1928, to four balanced budgets in a row, paying off $405 billion dollars of national debt, on occasion, I can actually be practical.

Rejecting the foolish idea of simply trying to get 50% of the vote plus one, Gingrich calls for an outreach to every American:

[W]e have to be prepared to say, with the deepest of meaning, that…we are determined to go into the poorest of communities, of every part of America, from the valleys, to the inner cities, to poor rural areas, and we are going to change the culture, we are going to change the bureaucracy, we are going to change the tax code, we are going to do whatever it takes, so that every American is truly capable of pursuing happiness as they have been endowed by their creator. And I believe, the morning all Americans believe that we, as conservatives, are serious about them having the right to pursue happiness, we will create a 70% to 75% majority that will be staggering in the scale of it, and the reach of it, in the neighborhoods we never thought we could carry, simply for a practical reason. We can offer their children and grandchildren a vastly better future than the bureaucratic welfare state of dependency, coercion, and ineffectiveness.

In closing, Ferrara once again cites Gingrich's bona fides in leading the conservative movement from the White House:

It was Gingrich, do not forget, who led conservatives in the fight against Bush 41's disastrous 1990 budget deal, which is what catapulted him to the top of the House Republican leadership. He demonstrated his prime-time leadership abilities in engineering the historic Republican takeover of Congress in 1994. Most importantly, Speaker Gingrich successfully implemented conservative policies once in power. He slashed total federal spending by one-eighth relative to GDP, more even than Reagan did in the 1980s, though Reagan was rightly distracted by the defense buildup that won the Cold War without firing a shot. Gingrich led adoption of the enormously successful 1996 welfare reforms ending the entitlement status of the old, New Deal, Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program, sending it back to the states as long sought by Reagan and his welfare guru Robert Carleson. He also led adoption of Freedom to Farm, which began phasing out farm subsidies, until later overturned under Speaker Hastert. These are the policies that not only balanced the budget without tax increases, but achieved large surpluses with tax cuts that fueled the continuation of the Reagan boom through the 1990s.

With Reagan's glorious victory over Soviet Communism, Gingrich now offers the leadership to win the full and final victory over the Left in the next logical step: vanquishing the Left within America itself.

It may appear as if I quoted the entire article -- but there are plenty of other great sections that I did not. Here is the link again.

And the link to Newt's speech is here (at the Institute for Policy Innovation).