Posted on 12/12/2011 4:03:09 PM PST by Fred
Newt Gingrich’s rise to the top of the GOP polls is fueled, in part, by Republicans’ mistrust of Mitt Romney. Romney’s signature Massachusetts health-care law, the model for Obamacare, leads many to wonder whether Romney can challenge the president on this most important domestic issue. But any conservative who opposes Romney because of Romneycare should oppose Gingrich with thrice the intensity: Newt Gingrich is one of the principal abettors of the exploding health-care entitlement state we face today. Indeed, it’s not clear what would be worse for the cause of entitlement reform: Newt’s losing to Obama or Newt’s beating him.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
So what if Gingrich will guarantee Obama reelection?
So what if Gingrich has many wives and tawdry affairs?
He's not Mormon!
Who is electable in your opinion? Can't wait to hear it.
Granted that Newt may be talking beyond his powers, he is talking a good fight. When did McCain ever even do that?
And then there’s Gingrich’s turbulent four-year tenure as speaker of the House, in which he was as responsible as anyone for the growth of federal health-care entitlements to their current unsustainable levels.
In 1997, the Gingrich-led House of Representatives passed legislation creating the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or S-CHIP, which was then the largest statutory expansion of Medicaid since the program was founded in 1965. Today, thanks to Newt Gingrich, nearly 4 in 10 children in the United States are on Medicaid. Many of those kids were forced off of higher-quality private-sector health coverage and forced into the Medicaid ghetto, where poor children die of toothaches due to inadequate care.
Another dubious part of the 1997 Gingrich-Clinton budget deal was the Medicare Sustainable Growth Rate, in which the Gingrich-led House passed what has become one of Washington’s favorite accounting gimmicks: pretending to drastically cut Medicare payments to doctors and hospitals in the future, so as to make the long-term budget outlook appear better than it is, while in reality passing “doc fix” legislation each year that keeps Medicare payments on their prior trajectory. The “doc fix” that Congress is contemplating for 2012 will cost $22 billion, a figure that goes up over time as the gap widens between what the 1997 law prescribed and what Medicare costs today.
I do not know the advantages or disadvantages of the Medicare Advantage Programs.
I am on Medicare, I thought that the Advantage Programs were going to get the axe under the new "obama health care".
Anybody who thinks Steyn is a socialist RINO hasn’t read his latest book which is an absolutely devastating condemnation of the big-government nanny state robbing us of our liberties that has arisen under both Republicans and Democrats. It will scare the heck out of you. Steyn describes the bleak future awaiting America if we don’t reverse things. He’s calling it Armageddon. If Steyn is against Gingrich that is good enough for me.
Well, I propose you stop smearing your feces on the walls of FR like some psychotic child. If you find it so distasteful here, you can leave.
I guarantee no one is going to try to stop you.
Seriously. That’s how the inarticulate Bush Bros. got elected POTUS, that’s how appearing and advertised as articulate Obama had to select a doofus as VP, to ease the blow to the delicate egos of the insecure voters, that’s how Reagan himself appeared folksy and simple, whether naturally or by design, where there was much more to him than the media would let on.
And that’s where the danger lies with Gingrich’s candidacy. Maybe selecting Perry as VP would help.
This sounds nice in theory, but as a matter of policy, it’s wrong. Medicare Advantage has 25 percent of the market in part because, prior to Obamacare, the government paid 14 percent more for a senior in Medicare Advantage than for one in traditional Medicare. (Obamacare significantly trimmed this subsidy.) Medicare Advantage has many qualities, but it has not reduced Medicare spending at all.
Sounds like a fantastic resume for a college professor.
Have a reading problem I see. As well as a childish foul mouth.
Who is the “idiot”?
I want Obama out of the White House. Sorry but, Newt doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell.
Right now I’m anybody but a looser, like McCain.
Callista is a programmed, helmut-haired robot. In appearances with Gingrich she acts like she’s terrified to open her mouth for fear she’ll say something that he’ll disapprove of. I saw them together on C-Span at a campaign event walking through a fairground. She started off in one direction, he in another. He chided her like she was an idiot that he had to watch every minute. Remember, folks, this is his third wife. She was an aid when he was in Congress. They were having an affair while he was married. Now, conveniently, he’s a devout Catholic and has put all that behind him. Give me a break. I will not vote for him. I don’t care how sharp his knife is in a debate.
Sarah Palin, had she run, would have been the true Tea Party candidate. Many who are now supporting Newt would have supported Palin. But Palin's political agenda is miles apart from Newt.
Newt is the consummate D.C. insider. He's been associated with D.C. for 25 years. Since he left Congress, he has sought to enrich and ingratiate himself with people on both sides the aisle - whomever would pay him the most.
Palin loved the Paul Ryan budget plan. Newt called it right wing extremism.
Palin criticizes corporate cronyism. Gingrich partakes in it.
I don’t know what to do! All I know is that I’m not voting Newt.
I wish Sarah would have run. I don’t like Romney, I don’t like or trust Newt, I like Santorum and Bachmann, but they aren’t polling well.
Oy...
I agree, but "flawed" conservative is an important point, too. Conservatives supporting Newt have bought a pig in a poke.
But like they say, your mileage may differ.
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