[Editor's Note: On Wednesday, May 2, 2012 Newt Gingrich announced at a press conference in Arlington, Virginia that he was suspending his presidential campaign. Gingrich stated: "Today I am suspending the campaign, but suspending the campaign does not mean suspending citizenship. Callista and I are committed to be active citizens. We owe it to America... We’re going to pursue solutions, we want those solutions to be real, that is going to lead Callista and me to campaign for a Republican president, a Republican House, a Republican Senate... As to the presidency, I am asked sometimes, is Mitt Romney conservative enough, and my answer is simple... This is not a choice between Mitt Romney and Ronald Reagan. This is a choice between Mitt Romney and the most radical leftist president in American history... Economic recovery will begin late on election night when people realize that Obama is gone... There is a shining future ahead."]
Newt Gingrich
Republican Presidential Candidate
Former Speaker of the US House of Representatives (R-GA)
Con: "[John Lofton of American View]: Sure. You think abortion should be a crime?
Gingrich: (Pause) I think that abortion should not be legal, and I think that how you would implement that I’m not sure.
Lofton: OK, I’m not sure what that means —- it should not be legal. Would you make it a law that would consider it a crime to perform an abortion, or for a woman to have one? Should there be any legal protection for the unborn as far as you’re concerned?
Gingrich: There should be. And I think the focus has been on doctors performing abortions. And in that sense that we want to move the society as rapidly as we can that people should select adoption rather than abortion and that choosing abortion is not acceptable."
None Found: ProCon.org emailed the Gingrich campaign for his position to this question on Oct. 26, 2011, Nov. 11, 2011, and on Jan. 30, 2012. We also left a follow up telephone message on Feb. 8, 2012. We have not yet received a reply with Gingrich's position as of Feb. 13, 2012.
Not Clearly Pro or Con: "They ought to repeal Sarbanes-Oxley now. If we get back on track, the -- and you know this, as a former ambassador -- the Chinese couldn't compete with us in a hundred years if we got our act together in this country and we got back to doing the right things in this country; at which point we could afford to buy houses, which would solve virtually everything else. You got to be able to afford it to be able to buy it, and that's where things went wrong in the -- in the last decade.”
Not Clearly Pro or Con: "Outsource the authentication of new Medicare and Medicaid suppliers to Visa, Mastercard, or American Express. After forty years of failure, it is clear the status quo in Washington, D.C., is incapable of managing these programs, so let’s turn to experts with a track record of success.
The American credit card industry processes over $2 trillion in transactions every year, and there are 800 million credit cards accepted by millions of vendors to buy countless products. Yet fraud constitutes just one-tenth of one percent of the credit card industry. Conservatively speaking, fraud in Medicare and Medicaid is 10 percent, making it 100 times worse."
To Save America: Stopping Obama's Secular-Socialist Machine, 2009
Con: “It has always struck me that if you're serious about trying to stop drug use, then you need to find a way to have a fairly easy approach to it and you need to find a way to be pretty aggressive about insisting--I don't think actually locking up users is a very good thing. I think finding ways to sanction them and to give them medical help and to get them to detox is a more logical long-term policy.”
Chris Moody," Newt Gingrich on Drug Laws, Entitlements, and Campaigning: The Yahoo News Interview,” www.yahoo.com, Nov. 28, 2011
Pro: "I was very proud as Speaker to be able to make sure that the Helms-Burton Act [a 1996 law which strengthened the US embargo against Cuba] passed, and I'm delighted that Congressman Dan Burton is here tonight and is campaigning with me, because it was a very important step towards isolating the Castro regime.
I think it's amazing that Barack Obama is worried about an Arab Spring, he's worried about Tunisia, he's worried about Libya, he's worried about Egypt, he's worried about Syria, and he cannot bring himself to look south and imagine a Cuban Spring. And I would argue that we should have, as a stated explicit policy, that we want to facilitate the transition from the dictatorship to freedom. We want to bring together every non-military asset we have, exactly as President Reagan and Prime Minister Thatcher and Pope John Paul II did in Poland and in Eastern Europe.
They broke up the Soviet empire without a general war by using a wide range of things, one of which is just psychological, saying to the next generation of people in Cuba, the dictatorship is not going to survive. You need to bet to moving to freedom in order to have prosperity in Cuba, and we will help you get to that freedom."
Pro: Chris Moody: “In 1996, you introduced a bill that would have given the death penalty to drug smugglers. Do you still stand by that?”
Newt Gingrich: “I think if you are, for example, the leader of a cartel, sure. Look at the level of violence they've done to society. You can either be in the Ron Paul tradition and say there's nothing wrong with heroin and cocaine or you can be in the tradition that says, 'These kind of addictive drugs are terrible, they deprive you of full citizenship and they lead you to a dependency which is antithetical to being an American.' If you're serious about the latter view, then we need to think through a strategy that makes it radically less likely that we're going to have drugs in this country."
Interview with Chris Moody, “Newt Gingrich on Drug Laws, Entitlements, and Campaigning: The Yahoo News Interview,” www.yahoo.com, Nov. 28, 2011
[Editor’s Note: On Sep. 25, 1996 Gingrich introduced HR 4170: Drug Importer Death Penalty Act of 1996 (0.2 MB). According to the Congressional Research Service, the bill that Gingrich sponsored would “direct the court to sentence a person convicted of bringing into the United States a proscribed quantity of a mixture or substance containing a controlled substance in an amount the Attorney General has determined is equal to 100 usual dosage amounts to life imprisonment without possibility of release (or, if the defendant has violated such provision on more than one occasion and if certain requirements under the Federal criminal code are met, to death).” The bill died in the Subcommittee on Health and Environment.]
Now Pro: “I will say this about the vote on TARP… the last 24 hours before the vote, I said I would probably vote yes…I was very biased against it and had opposed it all the previous week. I had a number of very, very successful businessmen who called me and said that you need to understand, this system is on the edge of total meltdown. These were people who weren’t politicians. They weren’t liberals. Some of them were very right wing. But they said this is a true crisis. This is like having a heart attack, this is a true crisis.”
May 2010 forum in Davenport, IA
Con: [Editor's Note: Prior to Newt Gingrich's 2010 Pro position above, he held a Con position as indicated in his Sep. 22, 2008 interview with NPR's All Things Considered below.]
“Well, I think you have a Goldman Sachs chief of staff to the president and the Goldman Sachs secretary of the Treasury. And they convinced the president that the American people ought to send $700 billion to Wall Street, which I think is a very, very bad idea, and I would argue is a very un-Republican idea. I don't understand what they think they're doing...
I think what they're doing is just wrong. And I think that it's likely to fail, and it's likely to make the situation worse over time. And I think that [US Treasury] Secretary [Henry] Paulson has shown almost no understanding of how a democracy operates. His initial draft would have given him $700 billion of your tax money with no oversight, no judicial review, no accountability. I mean, we're not a dictatorship…
I don't think the taxpayers should be socked for $700 billion for welfare for Wall Street. I think it's fundamentally wrong, and I think that it is very likely to create a bureaucratic control of our financial system in a way that will cripple us for 20 years.”
"Gingrich on Why Bailout Plan Is 'Just Wrong," npr.org, Sep. 22, 2008
Con: "[US Senate Minority Leader Mitch] McConnell's [debt ceiling increase] plan is an irresponsible surrender to big government, big deficits and continued overspending."
"Gingrich Blasts McConnell over Debt Ceiling", Political Ticker on CNN Politics website, July 12, 2011
Now Con: "First, my policy is to break up both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac…Second, I want to state unequivocally, for every person watching tonight, I have never once changed my positions because of any kind of payment. Because I -- the truth is, I was a national figure who was doing just fine, doing a whole variety of things, including writing best-selling books, making speeches. And the fact is, I only chose to work with people whose values I shared and having people have a chance to buy a house is a value I believe still is important in America."
Republican presidential debate, Sioux City, IA, hosted by Fox News, Dec. 15, 2011
[Editor's Note:Bloomberg News reported on Nov. 16, 2011 that Gingrich was paid between $1.6 million and $1.8 million as a consultant for Freddie Mac.]
Pro: [Editor's Note: Prior to Newt Gingrich's 2009 Con position above, he held a Pro position as indicated in his Apr. 24, 2007 interview with Freddie Mac below.]
“I think it is telling that there is strong bipartisan support for maintaining the GSE [government-sponsored enterprise] model in housing. There is not much support for the idea of removing the GSE charters from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. And I think it’s clear why. The housing GSEs have made an important contribution to homeownership and the housing finance system. We have a much more liquid and stable housing finance system than we would have without the GSEs. And making homeownership more accessible and affordable is a policy goal I believe conservatives should embrace. Millions of people have entered the middle class through building wealth in their homes, and there is a lot of evidence that homeownership contributes to stable families and communities. These are results I think conservatives should embrace and want to extend as widely as possible. So while we need to improve the regulation of the GSEs, I would be very cautious about fundamentally changing their role or the model itself.”
"Market-Based Models Are Key to Transforming U.S. Government to a 21st Century Organization," www.freddiemac.com, Apr. 24, 2007
Not Clearly Pro or Con: "And one of the things the Congress should do immediately is defund the National Labor Relations Board which has gone into South Carolina to punish Boeing, which wants to put 8,000 American jobs in South Carolina, by fundamentally eliminating right-to-work [legislation that let employees decide for themselves whether or not they want to join a union or financially support it] at the National Labor Relations Board (there are more than 22 states with right-to-work laws -- laws that do not force people to pay union dues as a condition ofemployment). That's a real, immediate threat from the Obama administration to eliminate right-to-work. And I think that it is fundamentally the wrong direction. I hope that New Hampshire does adopt right-to-work. I frankly keep it at the state level because as each new state becomes right-to-work, they send a signal to the remaining states, don't be stupid. Why you want to be at California's unemployment level when you can be Texas's employment level? Or North Dakota's? And I think... that if you believe in the 10th Amendment, we ought to -- let the states learn from each other. And the right-to-work states are creating a lot more jobs today that the heavily unionized states. The public employee union question is a totally different issue."
CNN Republican presidential debate, Manchester, NH, June 13, 2011
Pro: "I think the fact is that NAFTA enabled us to build jobs in Canada, the United States, and Mexico, in competition with China. I mean, our big competitor is not Mexico. Our big competitor is China and India. And I’d rather have jobs close to the United States than have jobs overseas in places like China and India. That’s why I was in favor of it and I think on balance, look at who our biggest customers are. Our biggest customers are Canada and Mexico. They buy more American products than other countries do. So in a sense, I’d like our neighborhood to be fairly well off and fairly prosperous."
Interview on the Howie Carr Show, YouTube.com, Mar. 14, 2011
[Editor's Note: As Speaker of the House, Gingrich voted "Yea" on Nov. 17, 1993 on the passage of HR 3450(1.2 MB), the North American Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act Public Law 103-182.]
Pro: "Everybody in big oil who hates ethanol will you give you this no subsidy argument, right. So Obama comes in at the beginning of this year and says 'lets get rid of $10-$14 billion dollars in oil exemptions.' Did you hear anybody jump up in the oil business and say 'Boy, that's exactly right? Hate those subsidies.' No, everybody's whose tried to kill ethanol on behalf of big oil, promptly jumped up and said -- and happens to be right by the way, and I'm against getting rid of these -- that they in fact apply overwhelmingly to the small independents who do all the exploration from the new fields… You've got two sources of energy fighting each other. I am for both of them."
Newt Gingrich interview with Union Leader, C-SPAN.org, Nov. 21, 2011
Not Clearly Pro or Con: "In the United States, there exists a coalition of union leaders who prefer protection over competition…. This liberal coalition complains about companies’ outsourcing jobs while insisting on corporate taxes that encourage companies to go overseas…
Those who advocate economic isolationism and protectionism are advocating a policy that could help China and India surpass the United States in economic power in our children’s or grandchildren’s lifetime…
If we want the United States to be the multinational headquarters of the world, we are going to have to rewrite our tax laws so that there are no tax disadvantages to an American firm acquiring an overseas competitor… America’s new jobs have been to a large degree higher paying, cleaner, healthier, and more desirable than the jobs they replaced. The insourcing of new jobs is far greater than the outsourcing we hear so much about in political and news media rhetoric.”
Winning the Future: A 21st Century Contract with America, 2005
Not Clearly Pro or Con: [Editor's Note:On July 31, 1996, Gingrich voted yes for HR 3734 (984 KB), the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. The bill provided for increased funding of abstinence education.]
HR 3734 stated: "The purpose of an allotment under subsection (a) to a state is to enable the State to provide abstinence education, and at the option of the State, where appropriate, mentoring, counseling, and adult supervision to promote abstinence from sexual activity, with a focus on those groups which are most likely to bear children out-of-wedlock."
HR 3734, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, July 31, 1996
Not Clearly Pro or Con: "I think that education should be the first civil right of the 21st century and I think we have to move forward from No Child Left Behind towards helping every American get ahead."
"Gingrich, Sharpton Meet with Obama on Education," CNN.com, May 7, 2009
Con: "I think the whole concept of a state or federal curriculum is profoundly wrong. If you bureaucratize the process, you bureaucratize the teacher, you make it all boring and it all becomes a matter of cheating. Because when you're studying for the test, you're not studying to learn, you're studying to get through some test and everybody knows it. So you gradually take life out of the system."
Con: "The current ideologically driven, credentialed, bureaucratic, unionized, tenured system cannot be fixed... Tenure should be abolished. No bad teacher should be permitted to ruin a child’s future."
"Newt Gingrich Handout on Education for College Board Forum," Newt.org, Oct. 27, 2011
"Was the US Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling, which allows for unlimited political contributions on the grounds of free speech, good for America?"
Pro: "While some of the increase in gas prices comes from growing demand, the demand pressures on price can and should be offset by increasing domestic supplies. Yet the Obama administration’s ideological refusal to expand American energy production continues to block the development of resources which could lower prices dramatically. As we saw most recently with the administration’s rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline, the president is more interested in playing favorites with environmental extremists rather than embracing the ‘all-of-the-above’ strategy that could achieve energy independence and help all Americans now…
Pursuant to this plan, we should take eight steps immediately to address these skyrocketing gas prices and jumpstart production of American energy: Approve the Keystone XL pipeline."
Newt Gingrich, "$2.50 Gallon Gasoline and Energy Independence," HumanEvents.com, Feb. 15, 2012
Now Pro: “Drilling in ANWR is effectively banned until Congress votes to allow it. In 1995, those of us in Congress who wanted to lesson our dependence on foreign oil passed a bill to allow drilling in ANWR only to see it vetoed by President Clinton…
Unfortunately, Congress continues to oppose lifting the ANWR ban to this day, and Americans continue to pay more at the pump.”
Cowritten with Vince Haley, Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less: A Handbook for Slashing Gas Prices and Solving Our Energy Crisis, 2008
Con: [Editor's Note: Prior to Newt Gingrich's 2008 Pro position above, he held a Con position as indicated by the below open letter from Carl Pope, Sierra Club Executive Director at the time of the quote, to then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich in a 1995 issue of Sierra:]
"As a Sierra Club member, Mr. Gingrich, you opposed drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, calling it a '188-day quick fix' for America's energy future. 'Fuel efficiency and conservation measures have a greater potential for providing longterm energy security for our nation,' you said in response to a Sierra Club questionnaire. 'The dramatic increases in fuel efficiency seen in America's automotive fleet are evidence of how we can meet energy needs of the future.'"
Paul Rauber, "Newt Gingrich, Sierra Clubber," Sierra Daily, Dec. 9, 2011
Now Not Clearly Pro or Con: "Newt does not believe there is a settled scientific conclusion about whether industrial development has dramatically contributed to a warming of the atmosphere."
"Setting the Record Straight: Newt's Positions on the Issues and His Record," www.newt.org (accessed Nov. 21, 2011)
Pro: [Editor's Note: Prior to the Not Clearly Pro or Con comment above, accessed on Nov. 21, 2011, Gingrich was Pro to our question as evidenced by his Feb. 22, 1989 co-sponsoring of H.R. 1078, The Global Warming Prevention Act, which said in part:]
"The Congress finds that--
(1) the Earth's atmosphere is being changed at an unprecedented rate by pollutants resulting from human activities, inefficient and wasteful fossil fuel use, and the effects of rapid population growth in many regions;
(2) global warming will accelerate the present sea level rise and thereby threaten to inundate low-lying coastal lands and islands, reduce coastal water supplies by increased salt water intrusion, and potentially increase the frequency of tropical cyclones, floods, and storm surges;
(3) global warming imperils human health and well-being and is likely to diminish food security and change the distribution and seasonal availability of fresh water resources;
(4) global warming will jeopardize prospects for sustainable development and reduction of poverty, accelerate extinction of animal and plant species upon which human survival depends, and alter yield, productivity, and biological diversity of natural and managed ecosystems, particularly forests;."
H.R. 1078, the Global Warming Prevention Act, thomas.loc.gov, Feb. 22, 1989
Pro: "In states where people have been allowed to have concealed weapons, in Mississippi and Kentucky, there have been incidents of this kind [Virginia Tech massacre] of a killer who were stopped, because in fact, people who are law-abiding people, who are rational, and people who are responsible had the ability to stop them."
Con: "Gingrich will call for the next President to issue four executive orders on the first day he takes office to protect the second amendment rights of Americans…In proposing these executive orders, Gingrich will cite the success of Project Exile in Richmond, VA, which has taken advantage of existing federal laws and prosecutes suspects in federal courts, as proof that new gun restrictions on law-abiding Americans are unnecessary.”
"Gingrich to NRA: Obama Most Anti-Gun Rights President in History,” www.newt.org, Apr. 9, 2011
Con: "The big government Obamacare approach does not address the root causes of America's health care crisis. Instead, it creates layers of new taxes, regulations, and bureaucracies that will ultimately make our problems worse, not better."
Not Clearly Pro or Con: “I agree that all of us have a responsibility to pay--help pay for health care. And, and I think that there are ways to do it that make most libertarians relatively happy. I've said consistently we ought to have some requirement that you either have health insurance or you post a bond or in some way you indicate you're going to be held accountable…
But it's a system which allows people to have a range of choices which are designed by the economy. But I think setting the precedent--you know, there are an amazing number of people who think that they ought to be given health care. And, and so a large number of the uninsured earn $75,000 or more a year, don't buy any health insurance because they want to buy a second house or a better car or go on vacation. And then you and I and everybody else ends up picking up for them. I don't think having a free rider system in health is any more appropriate than having a free rider system in any other part of our society.”
Not Clearly Pro or Con: "There are currently anywhere from 8 to 12 million people living in the United States who entered illegally... We need a path to legality, but not citizenship, for some of these individuals who have deep ties to America... Applicants must first pass a criminal background check, and then the local committees will assess applications based on family and community ties, and ability to support oneself via employment without the assistance of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other entitlement programs... The government will rigorously enforce a requirement that all individuals seeking this path to legality must be able to prove that they can independently pay for private health insurance. If an individual cannot prove this, they will lose the ability to stay in the United States... Moving forward, those who receive this status will have to prove on a regular basis that they can support themselves without entitlement programs and pay for health insurance or else risk the ability to stay in the United States."
"Immigration: 10 Steps to a Legal Nation," Newt.org (accessed Feb. 16, 2012)
[Editor's Note: For additional context, we have provided the following statement from the Nov. 5, 2011 Republican presidential candidate debate with Herman Cain in The Woodlands, TX: "We should be able to identify everyone who gets emergency aid and every state should sue the federal government every year for every cent spent on illegals who should not be in the United States. That is the federal government's responsibility."]
Con: "There is no possibility that the federal government could run such a [guest worker] program without massive fraud and counterfeiting. On the other hand, American Express’s rate of fraud is less than one tenth of one percent.
We can build on the universal system of biometric, tamper-proof visa documents that all visitors must have, and invite a private-sector firm with a proven track record to monitor the guest worker program.
For guest workers, the new tamper-proof, biometric cards will replace the e-verify system, which has some promising elements, but is too error-prone. Employers will be able to swipe prospective employees biometric cards, and immediately be able to confirm that these workers are in the country legally."
"10 Steps to a Legal Nation," Newt.org, Nov. 23, 2011
Pro: "Bill O'Reilly: All right, let's go to immigration. Border fence, would you put a border fence from Brownsville [border city in Texas] San Diego if you were president?
GINGRICH: Yes.
O'REILLY: Ok.
GINGRICH: Absolutely."
Interview with Newt Gingrich, The O'Reilly Factor, Nov. 28, 2011
Not Clearly Pro or Con: "I think we have to find a way to get to a country in which everybody who's here is here legally....We ought to control the border, we ought to have a legal guest worker program. We ought to outsource it, frankly, to American Express, Visa, and MasterCard, so there'sno counterfeiting, which there will be with the federal government. We should be very tough on employers once you have that legal program. We should make English the official language of government....We should insist that first-generation immigrants who come here learn American history in order to become citizens. We should also insist that American children learn American history. And then find a way to deal with folks who are already here, some of whom, frankly, have been here 25 years, are married with kids, live in our local neighborhood, go to our church. It's got to be done in a much more humane way than thinking that to automatically deport millions of people.”
Republican presidential debate, Simi Valley, CA, Sep. 7, 2011
Pro: "If we get to a point where the military believes that they [Iran] are truly on the verge of getting a nuclear weapon, I would be prepared to use military force."
Jonathan Easley, "Gingrich: 'Wage Real Cyber Warfare' to Take Down Iran's Regime," TheHill.com, Nov. 22, 2011
Pro: "We have blocked further attacks on America largely because of the courage and determination of one man, President George W. Bush. As I wrote in October 2004, faced with the deliberate and horrific attacks on 9/11, President Bush instinctively understood that this was a war.
He demonstrated his courage by taking that war to al Qaeda to protect the American people. Despite opposition from confused and reluctant bureaucrats and politicians, he acted. That decision was the decisive break with the terrorism-as-a-criminal-act strategy and in direct contrast to the terrorism-as-a-nuisance mindset held by many.
Today, because of President Bush’s courage, there are no terrorist training camps in Afghanistan threatening Americans.”
Newt Gingrich, "Lessons from the First Five Years of the War,” www.aei.org, Oct. 11, 2006
Pro: "We have blocked further attacks on America largely because of the courage and determination of one man, President George W. Bush. As I wrote in October 2004, faced with the deliberate and horrific attacks on 9/11, President Bush instinctively understood that this was a war.
He demonstrated his courage by taking that war to al Qaeda to protect the American people. Despite opposition from confused and reluctant bureaucrats and politicians, he acted. That decision was the decisive break with the terrorism-as-a-criminal-act strategy and in direct contrast to the terrorism-as-a-nuisance mindset held by many.
Today, because of President Bush’s courage, there are no terrorist training camps in Afghanistan threatening Americans.”
Newt Gingrich, "Lessons from the First Five Years of the War,” www.aei.org, Oct. 11, 2006
Pro: "[T]he US government should actively support a democratic Palestinian state... The US government can play a constructive role by stating the circumstances under which it would recognize a Palestinian state and establish an embassy. President George W. Bush has already taken key steps in this direction, outlining the conditions for recognizing a Palestinian state in a June 24, 2002 speech... [T]he United States should begin to take clear steps to bring a better life for the Palestinian people and should propose better systems and solutions to ease the daily depravations of the Palestinian people."
"Defeat of Terror, Not Roadmap Diplomany, Will Bring Peace," Middle East Quarterly website, Summer 2005
Con: "I believe that marriage is between a man and woman. It has been for all of recorded history and I think this [gay marriage] is a temporary aberration that will dissipate. I think that it is just fundamentally goes against everything we know."
"Gingrich: Same-Sex Marriage Is a 'Temporary Aberration,' Des Moines Register, Sep. 30, 2011
Con: "I will be totally candid. I've had a life which, on occasion, has had problems. I believe in a forgiving God, and the American people will have to decide whether that's their primary concern. If the primary concern of the American people is my past, my candidacy would be irrelevant. If the primary concern of the American people is the future, they have to decide who can effectively get us to a future in which we are economically prosperous, militarily safe, and will maximize freedom for the American people. And that’s a debate I’ll be happy to have with your candidate or any other candidate..."
Public forum at the University of Pennsylvania, Outsidethebeltway.com, Feb. 22, 2011
Not Clearly Pro or Con: Chris Moody: "Would you continue the current federal policy making marijuana illegal in all cases or give the states more control?"
Gingrich: "I would continue current federal policy, largely because of the confusing signal that steps towards legalization sends to harder drugs.
I think the California experience is that medical marijuana becomes a joke. It becomes marijuana for any use. You find local doctors who will prescribe it for anybody that walks in."
Chris Moody: "Why shouldn't the states have control over this? Why should this be a federal issue?"
Gingrich: "Because I think you guarantee that people will cross state lines if it becomes a state-by-state exemption.
I don't have a comprehensive view. My general belief is that we ought to be much more aggressive about drug policy.”
Chris Moody, “Newt Gingrich on Drug Laws, Entitlements, and Campaigning: The Yahoo News Interview,” www.yahoo.com, Nov. 28, 2011
Now Con: "There is no medical marijuana. Marijuana is a drug. There is nothing in the Food and Drug Administration that supports the idea that it's medical. There's nothing in the Institute of Medicine that supports the idea it's medical. The American Medical Association has not said it's medical. This is a clever ad for a terrible idea. And the fact is it is a drug, it is currently illegal, it should remain illegal, that’s better for our children, and it’s better for Florida, and it’s better for America."
www.youtube.com (accessed on Oct. 21, 2011)
Pro: [Editor's Note: Prior to the Con comment accessed on Oct. 21, 2010, Gingrich made the Pro comment below on Mar. 19, 1982.]
"We believe licensed physicians are competent to employ marijuana, and patients have a right to obtain marijuana legally, under medical supervision, from a regulated source. The medical prohibition does not prevent seriously ill patients from employing marijuana; it simply deprives them of medical supervision and denies them access to a regulated medical substance. Physicians are often forced to choose between their ethical responsibilities to the patient and their legal liabilities to federal bureaucrats.
Representative McKinney and I hope the Council will take a close and careful look at this issue. Federal policies do not reflect a factual or balanced assessment of marijuana's use as a medicant. The Council, by thoroughly investigating the available materials, might well discover that its own assessment of marijuana's therapeutic value has, in the past, been more than slightly shaded by federal policies that are less than neutral."
"Is the 2012 NDAA, which authorized arresting and indefinitely detaining suspected terrorists (including US citizens) without charge, good for America?"
Con: "All of the Occupy movement starts with the premise that we all owe them everything. They take over a public park they didn't pay for, to go near by to use bathrooms they didn’t pay for, to beg for food from places they they don’t want to pay for, to obstruct those that are going to work to pay the taxes to sustain the bathrooms and to sustain the park so that they can self-righteously explain that they are the paragons of virtue to which we owe everything.
Now, that is a pretty good symptom of how much the left has collapsed as a moral system in this country and why you need to reassert something as simple as saying to them, 'Go get a job right after you take a bath.'"
"Thanksgiving Family Forum," rawstory.com, Nov. 19, 2011
Pro: "[E]verybody who's older and wants to be totally protected, fine. No change. So don't let anybody lie to you, starting with the president. No change. But if you're younger and you'd like a personal account you would control instead of the politicians....and you know you'll have more money at the end of your lifetime if you control it than the politicians, why shouldn't you have the right to choose?"
CNN-Tea Party Republican presidential debate, Tampa, FL, Sep. 12, 2011
Now Con: "I am very much for adult stem cells research. I am very much for stem cells research that comes from, for example, any device other than killing an embryo. But I am opposed to getting involved in a process of killing children in order to get research materials. And I think, in finding, you look at what’s with stem cell research, we have less and less demand that you have anything except regular stem cells because we’re learning how to use them. So I think some of that an ideological fight, not a scientific fight.”
"Gingrich on Stem Cells," YouTube.com, Sep. 29, 2011
Pro: [Editor's Note: Prior to Newt Gingrich's Sep. 29, 2011 Con position above, he held a Pro position as indicated in his Oct. 2006 interview with Discover magazine.]
"I think the federal government needs to set an example by making sure that when it is the funding source for such research, it is subject to serious ethical guidelines. I am against human cloning research, and I am against research on aborted fetuses. Having said that, I would not seek to ban research on [embryonic] stem cells in fertility clinics.”
Pro: "KING: Mr. Speaker, if you look at a poll in the Boston Globe just the other day, 54 percent of Republican voters in this state say they're willing to have higher taxes on the wealthy to help bring down the deficit. Are they wrong?
GINGRICH: Well, the question is, would it, in fact, increase jobs or kill jobs? The Reagan recovery, which I participated in passing, in seven years created for this current economy the equivalent of 25 million new jobs, raised federal revenue by $800 billion a year in terms of the current economy, and clearly it worked. It's a historic fact. The Obama administration is an anti-jobs, anti-business, anti- American energy destructive force. And we shouldn't talk about what we do in 2013. The Congress this year, this next week ought to repeal the Dodd-Frank bill, they ought to repeal the Sarbanes-Oxley bill, they ought to start creating jobs right now, because for those 14 million Americans, this is a depression now."
CNN Republican presidential debate, Manchester, NH, June 13, 2011
Con: "Stop the 2013 tax increases to promote stability in the economy. Job creation improved after Congress extended tax relief for two years in December. We should make the rates permanent. Make the United States the most desirable location for new business investment through a bold series of tax cuts, including: Eliminating the capital gains tax to make American entrepreneurs more competitive against those in other countries; Dramatically reducing the corporate income tax(among highest in the world) to 12.5%; Allowing for 100% expensing of new equipment to spur innovation and American manufacturing; Ending the death tax permanently."
Con: “It's tragic that President Obama cannot learn that class warfare and bureaucratic socialism kill jobs… On tax policy, you ought to say no tax increase in 2013, period. Go to zero capitals gains so hundreds of billions of dollars pour into the country to be invested. Go to a 12.5 percent with corporate tax rate… you ought to abolish the death tax permanently, because it is an immoral tax which says, if you work, save and do the right thing your entire lifetime, politicians have the right to take your money.
Let me be clear. I am for more revenue through economic growth. I'm for more revenue through the development of federal lands. I'm for more revenue through an American energy policy, but I'm against raising taxes.”
[Editor's Note: According to the Tax Policy Center, the top 1% would receive an average tax cut of $343, 993 in 2015 under Newt Gingrich's tax plan. Citizens for Tax Justice estimates that Gingrich's tax plan would produce an average tax cut of $391,330 for the top 1% of Americans. Bloomberg News reports that Americans earning more than $1 million a year would receive an average tax cut of $613,689 in 2015 compared to what they paid in 2011. Think Progress estimates that the richest 0.1% of Americans would receive a tax cut worth $2 million each year under Gingrich's tax plan.]
Pro: "First of all, I think the Republican Tea Party will beat the Democratic Socialist Party... Second, I like the Tea Party movement... I think the Tea Partiers I meet with around the country... are serious people studying the Constitution, trying to find a way to get back to balanced, limited government with balanced budgets and with much less power in Washington, and I approve of their general direction."
Interview with Newt Gingrich, Newsmax.tv, July 29, 2010
Not Clearly Pro or Con: "Van Susteren: All right, now, waterboarding -- is that torture?
Gingrich: I think it's something we shouldn't do.
Van Susteren: Should not do.
Gingrich: Should not do....[George] Washington issued very strict rules, to be charitable towards prisoners, to be careful about treating them humanely, to draw a distinction between the way the Europeans mercenaries dealt with our men and the way Americans deal with other prisoners. And I think Washington was closer to right. So I'm not going to defend any of these practices, but I do think the way the administration has approached it weakens the United States and I think that they have gratuitously done things that were not needed.
Van Susteren: OK. Is [waterboarding] torture or not?
Gingrich: I - I - I think it's - I can't tell you.
Van Susteren: Does it violate the Geneva Convention?
Gingrich: I honestly don't know.
Van Susteren: I'm just trying to understand where you stand on it.
Gingrich: I think - I think that there - I am exactly where Senator McCain was. Senator McCain said there are very rare circumstances where extreme measures should be used, and those circumstances should be personally signed by the president as commander-in-chief. And a good example is if you pick up somebody who has planted a nuclear weapon in Washington or New York or Los Angeles or Atlanta and you're trying to find out in the next three hours where is the nuclear weapon, the president of the United States may well authorize remarkably tough measures because a hundred thousand or a half million lives are at stake.
Van Susteren: Is it inside the law? I mean, is it inside the law?
Gingrich: I think - I think it's debatable. Lawyers I respect a great deal say it is absolutely within the law. Other lawyers say it absolutely is not. I mean, this is a debatable area."
"The Politics of Torture," On the Record with Greta Van Susteren, Fox News website, Apr. 26, 2009
Con: "Nazis don't have the right to put up a sign next to the Holocaust museum in Washington... [W]e would never accept the Japanese putting up a site next to Pearl Harbor. There is no reason for us to accept a mosque next to the World Trade Center."
Gingrich Compares NYC Islamic Community Center to 'Nazis' Putting a 'Sign Next to the Holocaust Museum,'" Fox News, Media Matters for American website, Aug. 16, 2010
Newt Gingrich's Biography
Title(s):
Former Speaker of the US House of Representatives (R-GA)
Personal Information:
Full Name: Newton "Newt" Leroy Gingrich
Marital Status: Married
Birthdate: June 17, 1943
Children: Two
Birthplace: Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
Religion: Member of the Catholic Church since January 2009 (formerly Baptist)
Involvement:
Founder, Center for Health Transformation, 2003-present
Founder, Gingrich Group (communications and consulting firm), 1999-present
Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Hoover Institution at Stanford University, 1999-present
News and political analyst, Fox News Channel, 1999-Mar. 2, 2011
Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute (AEI)
General Chairman, American Solutions for Winning the Future
Founding member, Project Vote Smart
Co-chairman, National Commission for Quality Long-term Care
Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Jan. 4, 1995 - Jan. 3, 1999
Minority Whip of the US House of Representatives, Mar. 20, 1989 - Jan. 3, 1995
US Representative (R-GA), Jan. 3, 1979 - Jan. 3, 1999
Member, House Administration Committee, Subcommittee on Procurement and Printing; Accounts 1993-1995
Member, House Joint Committee on Printing, 1993-1995
Professor, History and Environmental Studies, West Georgia College, 1970-1978
Southern Regional Director, Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, 1968
Education:
PhD, Western European History, Tulane University, 1971
MA, Modern European History, Tulane University, 1968