Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich says in order to reduce the nation’s skyrocketing debt and thwart soaring unemployment, Republicans must “run as a team” in the fall to ensure they not only win the presidency, but retain the House and snare the Senate. Gingrich also told Fox News’ Sean Hannity Thursday the difference between his vision for rejuvenating America and that of rival Mitt Romney’s is the distinction between “managing decay” and fomenting “dramatic change.”
Hannity noted the Congressional Budget Office has released a report that shows that by the end of this year, unemployment will be back at 9 percent and the projected deficit could top $22 trillion. He asked the former House speaker what he would do to change the “devastating” projections.
“First of all, you have to run as a team this fall because you want to elect a Republican Senate, you want to elect a Republican House, and you want to be elected on a commitment that in the first two weeks they will repeal Obamacare, repeal Dodd-Frank, repeal Sarbanes-Oxley,” Gingrich said. “As president on the first day, I will go through a series of executive orders, including abolishing all the White House czars, issuing the permit for the Keystone pipeline. So the Canadians will wait until January 20th, and we will build the pipeline to Houston.
“You will see a series of those steps the very first day — I think we can dramatically turn the government around,” he said. “It took us three years to get to a balanced budget when I was speaker and I think as president, it will probably take five years because of this president — but I think it can be done pretty rapidly.”
Gingrich noted that a “dramatic change” is needed in Washington and not just “managing decay” created by President Barack Obama, adding “half measures are irrelevant.” The former House speaker has indicated the difference between managing and change is indicative of the distinction between him and presidential rival Mitt Romney.
“When I was speaker, we did things as big as welfare reform — two out of three people went to school and went to work — biggest reform of your lifetime. So I think I have a pretty good notion of what large-scale change is like,” Gingrich said. “And remember: We did welfare reform with a Democrat in the White House. So start with the difference, when Romney was governor of Massachusetts, he . . . did not change the culture of Massachusetts, or the politics of Boston.
“But in fact he was . . . the third from the bottom in job creation, he raised taxes substantially, he got Romneycare, which and the precursor to Obamacare, and the result was there were no new jobs,” he continued.
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