Gingrich outlines 10-point plan that include flat tax, health care and social security changes

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/gingrich-outlines-10-point-plan-that-include-flat-tax-health-care-and-social-security-changes/2011/09/29/gIQAqkHm7K_story.html#article-leaf-page ^ | Thursday, September 29

[¢ommon ¢ents]

DES MOINES, Iowa — Hoping to revive his flagging bid for the Republican presidential nomination, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is calling for an overhaul of the way Americans pay taxes, buy health care and contribute to the Social Security system.

Gingrich mapped out the 10-point plan, which he’s calling The 21st Century Contract with America, in a speech at a Des Moines insurance company Thursday. Key elements include repealing President Barack Obama’s health care plan, giving taxpayers the option of paying a flat tax and allowing young people to opt out of Social Security.

[CynicalBear]

Here’s some info for you on the gun rights issue regarding states.

Let’s look at some history on who is “in charge” when it comes to the second amendment rights.

William Rawle in his 1825 text, A View of the Constitution of the United States of America.

“No clause could by any rule of construction be conceived to give to congress a power to disarm the people. Such a flagitious attempt could only be made under some general pretence by a state legislature. But if in any blind pursuit of inordinate power, either should attempt it, this amendment may be appealed to as a restraint on both.”

He was talking there about the 2nd ammendment. Did you notice the word “either”? That meant if either the Federal or the State government tried.

Then look at a current situation and case.

Antonin Scalia in writing for the majority in District of Columbia v. Heller:

Nowhere else in the Constitution does a “right” attributed to “the people” refer to anything other than an individual right. What is more, in all six other provisions of the Constitution that mention “the people,” the term unambiguously refers to all members of the political community, not an unspecified subset. This contrasts markedly with the phrase “the militia” in the prefatory clause. As we will describe below, the “militia” in colonial America consisted of a subset of “the people”— those who were male, able bodied, and within a certain age range. Reading the Second Amendment as protecting only the right to “keep and bear Arms” in an organized militia therefore fits poorly with the operative clause’s description of the holder of that right as “the people”.

Notice the right is given to the people not to the government of either Federal or State.

Even in the dissenting opinion, which didn’t win by the way, the Justices couldn’t even get the wording to give States or the Feds the right to take away gun rights from less then law abiding citizens.

John Paul Stevens countered in his dissenting opinion :

“When each word in the text is given full effect, the Amendment is most naturally read to secure to the people a right to use and possess arms in conjunction with service in a well-regulated militia. So far as appears, no more than that was contemplated. But the Court itself reads the Second Amendment to protect a “subset” significantly narrower than the class of persons protected by the First and Fourth Amendments; when it finally drills down on the substantive meaning of the Second Amendment, the Court limits the protected class to “law-abiding, responsible citizens”.

Note that Paul Stevens opinion is only that, and opinion, and was not the winning verdict.

[matthew fuller]

http://www.newt.org/

[matthew fuller]

"The only meaningful idea on the table 9-9-9 by Cain."

I really like Cain BUT- I'm not for a 17.5% sales tax, plus 9% income tax.

[3boysdad]

>>>i didn’t understand in the 90’s why we need a contract , nor now.<<<

And you should be asking yourself why Newtie wasn't proposing this “contract” in the 90’s. He's just telling you what you want to hear like all career politicians do.

Herman Cain.

[casinva]

Here, I think this has all the info on Newt’s 21st Century Contract: http://www.newt.org/21st-century-contract-america

[newzjunkey]

Thanks for that. I did find a simple typo but it's a great start.

It's reflective of Newt's debate answers and the depth with which he's familiar with the problems at hand.

I would enjoy seeing him debate Obama at length.

I know the conventional wisdom is Newt has too much baggage but I'm beyond that. I want substance and he brings plenty. I would prefer him to Romney.

[newzjunkey]

Newt signed the Susan B Anthony List pro-life pledge. That pledge includes a commitment to defunding Planned Parenthood, ending taxpayer funding of abortion here and abroad, and advancing a pain-capable unborn child protection law.

This part of the new contract is key federal issues: size and scope of gov't, proper role of the judiciary, taxation, healthcare, social security, national security, etc.

[1010RD]

PART 1: LEGISLATIVE PROPOSALS

Executive Summary

1. Repeal Obamacare and pass a replacement that saves lives and money by empowering patients and doctors, not bureaucrats and politicians.

2. Return to robust job creation with a bold set of tax cuts and regulatory reforms that will free American entrepreneurs to invest and hire, as well as by reforming the Federal Reserve and creating a training requirement for extended federal unemployment benefits to encourage work and improve the quality of our workforce.

3. Unleash America’s full energy production potential in oil, natural gas, coal, biofuels, wind, nuclear oil shale and more, creating jobs, stimulating a sustainable manufacturing boom, lowering gasoline and other energy prices, increasing government revenues, and bolstering national security.

4. Save Medicare and Social Security by giving Americans more choices and tools to live longer, healthier lives with greater financial independence.

5. Balance the federal budget by freeing job-creators to grow the economy, reforming entitlements, and implementing waste cutting and productivity improvement systems such as Lean Six Sigma to eliminate waste and fraud. Pass a balanced budget amendment to keep it balanced.

6. Control the border by January 1, 2014 and establish English as the official language of government; reform the legal visa system, and make it much easier to deport criminals and gang members while making it easier for law abiding visitors to come to the US.

7. Revitalize our national security system to meet 21st century threats by restructuring and adequately funding our security agencies to function within a grand strategy for victory over those who seek to kill us or limit American power.

8. Maximize the speed and impact of medical breakthroughs by removing unnecessary obstacles that block new treatments from reaching patients and emphasizing research spending towards urgent national priorities, like brain science with its impact on Alzheimer’s, autism, Parkinson’s, mental health and other conditions knowledge of the brain will help solve.

9. Restore the proper role of the judicial branch by using the clearly delineated powers available to the president and Congress to correct, limit, or replace judges who violate the Constitution.

10. Enforce the Tenth Amendment by starting an orderly transfer of power and responsibility from the federal government back “to the states, respectively, or to the people,” as the Constitution requires. Over the next year, state and local officials and citizens will be asked to identify the areas which can be transferred back home.

[imjimbo]

Check out Marbury V Madison- it says that ANY law which doesn’t pass Constitutional muster is “no law”; as far as I know, this was NEVER overturned.

[hocndoc]

At Gingrich’s website, he begins the conversation on his “21st Century Contract with America” http://www.newt.org/21st-century-contract-america with this statement:
“”America’s exceptional nature is based on the self-evident truths contained in the Declaration of Independence. Our rights are endowed by our Creator and they are unalienable.””

[Repeal The 17th]

bookmark

[driftdiver]

A President can help stop the public funding of abortions and of the abortion mills.

[who knows what evil?]

Newt seems to have overlooked ‘term limits’ this time around...

[¢ommon ¢ents]

KoRn wrote:

I think a flat tax, while better than the current monstrosity of a revenue system, isn’t as good as a consumption based tax, like the “Fair Tax”.

Well, some of the ideas in the Fair Tax proposal are good. Some ideas in that are not so good. I don't believe it's a good idea for anyone to receive a monthly check from the government for basically nothing other than existing. The only thing worse than that is everyone receiving a monthly check from the government, and that's what the FairTax, as it is currently written, will do.

I also think everyone should pay taxes. The left likes to make the "fair share" argument about the upper end of the scale. But there is also a "fair share" issue at the lower end of the scale, and right now, the bottom half of the "taxpayers" either pay nothing at all, or worse receive a "refund" for taxes they haven't paid. The "prebate" is another "refund" scheme to redistribute wealth.

There are other issues with the FairTax bill as it currently exists. It turns over authority to change (increase) the tax rates to unelected bureaucrats in the executive branch. I don't want my taxes going up without a vote from the Congress. I'm pretty sure the Constitution requires that (although the courts might allow Congress to "delegate" that authority elsewhere).

I really don't want to turn this into a FairTax debate thread, though. You hit on the biggest weakness with the current fair tax proposal in your last sentence:

KoRn wrote:

Of course, no new proposals will be workable nor desirable until we first have a repeal of the 16th Amendment.

That's not what FairTax.org and the sponsors of the current bill in the Congress want to do. The current FairTax legislation aims to set up an additional taxation system before the 16th amendment is repealed.

casinva wrote:

Here, I think this has all the info on Newt’s 21st Century Contract: http://www.newt.org/21st-century-contract-america

Thanks for the link. I figured this information was on Newt's site, but I didn't look all that carefully there once I found it on the Des Moines register website.

newzjunkey wrote:

Thanks for that. I did find a simple typo but it's a great start.

It's reflective of Newt's debate answers and the depth with which he's familiar with the problems at hand.

I would enjoy seeing him debate Obama at length.

I know the conventional wisdom is Newt has too much baggage but I'm beyond that. I want substance and he brings plenty. I would prefer him to Romney.

I think Newt has a place in the next Republian administration, no matter what. He's a great idea guy and "policy wonk" type. I'm not sure that he's the top of the ticket, but I could vote for him in the general election if he wins. He would make an even better VP, I think. CSPAN-2 ratings would skyrocket with Newt presiding over the Senate.

Oh, and honorable mention to 1010RD for posting the executive summary of the legislative proposals.

[1010RD]

I am of two minds on that issue. Being an elected official you do learn and grow with the job. Over time you get better at working within the system and understanding how things get done. You learn to build consensus and move the ball forward incrementally, which is often all you can do. Winning bit by bit takes time. Remember the Democrats held both Houses for several generations between FDR and Carter.

If you kick those guys out what you get is a very powerful bureaucracy against new and potentially naive legislators. I’ve seen it firsthand and let me tell you the bureaucracy wins every time. It’s their job.

At the same time I see the dangers of careerism and incumbency, but I believe that is a direct result of big government intrusion. If we’d stayed within our Constitutional limitations, say going back to the Lochner era, we wouldn’t have the trouble with incumbency. Undoing the 17th Amendment and a return to Federalism would get rid of a lot of career politicians and return the Senate to its patrician and pro-state role.

[Cringing Negativism Network]

So.

Does Gingrich, who is indeed the smartest guy in the room most of the time wherever he is;

Have a plan, about fixing America’s continued de-industrialization, and our massive TRADE DEFICIT?

Or is Gingrich, who certainly does not lack intelligence or a willingness to pontificate, sleepily content (along with the rest of our so-called leaders) to simply ignore the catastrophe which is looming?

Step up to the plate Speaker Gingrich.

So?...

[CynicalBear]

Thaks imjimbo. I think it’s time “we the people” start forming “interest groups” by subject matter and keeping track of issues on a formal basis. Then when a issue comes up supply the information to the public for action.

[1010RD]

Thanks. It’s worth having it in the body of the thread for reference.

[military cop]

I would pay ......BIG MONEY to watch this guy debate Zero.

There’s no doubt in my mind, Newt wold leave “The One” so open mouthed with nowhere to go, he wouldn’t know whether to defecate or go blind.

RLTW

[Sequoyah101]

Google works really well:

http://www.newt.org/solutions/jobs-economy

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.
Move toward an optional flat tax of 15% that would allow Americans the freedom to choose to file their taxes on a postcard, saving hundreds of billions in unnecessary costs each year.
Strengthen the dollar by returning to the Reagan-era monetary policies that stopped runaway inflation and reforming the Federal Reserve to promote transparency.
Remove obstacles to job creation imposed by destructive and ineffective regulations, programs and bureaucracies. Steps include: Repealing the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which did nothing to prevent the financial crisis and is holding companies back from making new investments in the U.S; Repealing the Community Reinvestment Act, the abuse of which helped cause the financial crisis; Repealing the Dodd-Frank Law which is killing small independent banks, crippling loans to small businesses and crippling home sales; Breaking up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, moving their smaller successors off government guarantees and into the free market; Replacing the Environmental Protection Agency with an Environmental Solutions Agency that works collaboratively with local government and industry to achieve better results; and Modernizing the Food and Drug Administration to get lifesaving medicines and technologies to patients faster.
Implement an American energy policy that removes obstacles to responsible energy development and creates jobs in the United States.
Balance the budget by growing the economy, controlling spending, implementing money saving reforms, and replacing destructive policies and regulatory agencies with new approaches.
Repeal and replace Obamacare with a pro-jobs, pro-responsibility health plan that puts doctors and patients in charge of health decisions instead of bureaucrats.
Fundamental reform of entitlement programs with the advice and help of the American people.