From Frank Luntz's event in Iowa this Friday hosted by CafeMom, here are one of the less warm and fuzzy moments from Gingrich that did not result in him being moved to tears as he did later in the event when asked about his own mother.
It wasn't quite as bad as him saying that poor children have no work habits, or that get rid of the child labor laws and have poor kids cleaning schools, but it wasn't a lot better. Basically more worshiping at the throne of St. Ronnie, pull yourself up by your own bootstraps and the tax cut fairy is going to solve all of our problems and make our society equal for everyone and don't dare raise taxes on the rich because they're all going to leave the country if you do.
Here's how Gingrich claimed he'd take care of the economy, poverty and job creation:
LUNTZ: So what are the three priorities? You gave a general response. For them who are looking for specifics, what are your three priorities?
GINGRICH: Well, you have to fix the economy.
LUNTZ: By doing what?
GINGRICH: By cutting taxes, cutting regulations, building an American energy plan... exactly what Reagan did. I was very delighted yesterday to have Dr. Art Laffer come and endorse me because he helped to develop the Reagan plan in the '70's, I worked with him. We took that Reagan plan that worked, it created millions of jobs. We did the same thing when I was Speaker, created millions of jobs.
LUNTZ: Cutting taxes for everybody.
GINGRICH: Cutting taxes for everybody.
LUNTZ: Everybody.
GINGRICH: Everybody.
LUNTZ: Including millionaires?
GINGRICH: Yeah. My interest is economic growth. I know how to create jobs. I'm not into redistribution. The best thing you can do to solve the distribution gap in America is get every poor person a job. And if they have a job (applause)... if they have a job and they learn the work ethic and they start getting better education, they'll fix redistribution because they'll rise and their children will be even better off than they are. Now politicians taking from one group to give to another group is disastrous. It teaches everybody who is successful to leave the country. And every country that's tried this has found, it just drives successful people out of the country. So that's the big difference.
Full transcript below the fold:
LUNTZ: These moms, well, we did a survey for CafeMom, these moms talked with great intrepidation (sic) about the future. So many of them and I'll ask for a show of hands, how many of you are afraid that your children will not have the same quality of life that you had when they grew up? That's virtually every mom.
This is something that the president can do something about. As president, specifically, what would you do, not only to address their anxiety, but what is solutions so the next generation will have it better than this generation?
GINGRICH: Well, let me say to all of you, I always tell audiences that I don't ask anyone to be for me, because if you're for me you're going to vote and go home and say I hope he fixes it. And I think I'm a little less confident than Frank is. I think the president is going to have an impact, but presidents actually only have the impact the American people give them.
Ronald Reagan was effective because he could communicate clearly with the American people. And the American people then communicated clearly with the Congress. And so I think it has to be a team effort. And by the way I share your concerns. I think that if we don't have a profound change in this election, we are inevitably going to decay and the major reason that Callista and I walked through and spent almost a year deciding to run is, I don't want to leave Maggie and Robert a country which is poorer, weaker and more at danger than the country that our parents worked and fought to give us.
And I think we have to have a whole new approach to politics and we have to have a willingness to deal with very large solutions and to do it together and to bring people together to solve things. I think it can be done. And if you go newt.org you'll see layer after layer – some people say I have too many ideas – but I think when you have a country this big and in this much trouble, it takes a fair number of ideas to be able to fix it and get it back in shape. And that's what this campaign is all about, setting a path that's designed to create jobs, economic growth, national security and reassert the core values. You start with The Declaration of Independence and the belief that our rights come from our creator.
And if you could, if you could get right the economy, national security and the core value of American exceptionalism, this would be a remarkably successful country. And you could feel good about what you were leaving your children with.
LUNTZ: So what are the three priorities? You gave a general response. For them who are looking for specifics, what are your three priorities?
GINGRICH: Well, you have to fix the economy.
LUNTZ: By doing what?
GINGRICH: By cutting taxes, cutting regulations, building an American energy plan... exactly what Reagan did. I was very delighted yesterday to have Dr. Art Laffer come and endorse me because he helped to develop the Reagan plan in the '70's, I worked with him. We took that Reagan plan that worked, it created millions of jobs. We did the same thing when I was Speaker, created millions of jobs.
LUNTZ: Cutting taxes for everybody.
GINGRICH: Cutting taxes for everybody.
LUNTZ: Everybody.
GINGRICH: Everybody.
LUNTZ: Including millionaires?
GINGRICH: Yeah. My interest is economic growth. I know how to create jobs. I'm not into redistribution. The best thing you can do to solve the distribution gap in America is get every poor person a job. And if they have a job (applause)... if they have a job and they learn the work ethic and they start getting better education, they'll fix redistribution because they'll rise and their children will be even better off than they are. Now politicians taking from one group to give to another group is disastrous. It teaches everybody who is successful to leave the country. And every country that's tried this has found, it just drives successful people out of the country. So that's the big difference.
