 June 17, 2009 | Vol. 4, No. 24
"Don't Tell Me It Can't Be Done" by Newt Gingrich
Last week, I had the pleasure of addressing the Senate-House Annual
Republican Dinner. The MC for the evening was actor Jon Voight. Before
he spoke, a video tribute for Voight was shown, including clips of him
playing Franklin Delano Roosevelt in a movie.
In one scene,
Roosevelt is being told by his generals and advisors all the reasons
why achieving victory in World War II was too hard.
In
response, Voight - playing Roosevelt, who, remember, was confined to a
wheelchair due to polio - dramatically lifts himself up using the table
and stabilizes himself on his non-functioning legs. He then stares down
every shocked person in the room and says:
"Don't tell me it can't be done."
It occurred to me, sitting in the audience preparing to speak, that
those seven words - "Don't tell me it can't be done" - should be the
rallying cry for all Republicans (not to mention all Independents and
Democrats who want a better future for America - more on this idea
later).
I decided to make it the theme of my speech that night. Why? Because history shows us that it can be done.
America has been here before.
1964, 1977 and 1993 - in each of these years Republicans were gleefully
pronounced dead by the news media. But in each case, they came back. On Inauguration Day 1977, Carter's Popularity Was Higher Than Obama's
1964 was followed by 1965, in which Ronald Reagan was elected governor
of California. Two years later we began a 40-year period in which no
overt liberal won the presidency.
In 1977, Jimmy Carter's
popularity on inauguration day was higher than Barack Obama's. But in
1980, Ronald Reagan won a decisive victory and changed the course of
America.
In 1993, they said Bill Clinton was creating a new, stronger Democratic Party.
In 1994, the Democratic Party suffered its worst defeat in 40 years.
So don't tell me it can't be done. "My Fellow Republicans... and Independents and
Democrats Looking for a Better Future" History also shows us this:
Ronald Reagan won the presidency in 1980 and 1984 by appealing, not
just to Republicans, but to independents and unhappy Democrats as well.
In fact, it's hard to find a Reagan speech in which he doesn't speak to
"my fellow Republicans, and those independents and Democrats who are
looking for a better future."
Like Reagan, we have to be
inclusive, not exclusive. I'm happy Dick Cheney is a Republican. And
I'm happy Colin Powell is a Republican
But here's the key: Being inclusive doesn't mean going wobbly. It doesn't mean abandoning our principles. Key to Winning the Majority? Returning to First Principles
Reagan called them "first principles." They are our bedrock beliefs.
And in a center-right nation, they are the touchstones that will guide
us back into the majority.
Today I'm going to discuss some of these first principles and how they should guide us in the years ahead. We Must Strengthen Our Unique American Civilization
If you go to the National Archives, you will find the words that are
fundamental to America written in the Declaration of Independence:
"We are endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
These words make us unique. We are the only country in history that
says, "your personal rights come from God directly to you, the
individual, and you loan the government sovereignty."
That
means if we truly believe that each of us is endowed by our creator
with rights, then we have a deep moral obligation to save the unborn.
It also means we have a deep moral obligation to care for them after
they have been born.
That means that when judges like Supreme
Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor judge Americans by their ethnicity or
their gender, it's wrong.
It also means that rationing health
care is wrong. No government bureaucrat has the right to take from you
the rights that God gave you. Rationing health care is inevitably
limiting your life at the whim of a bureaucrat and at the manipulation
of a politician. Individual Rights and Individual Responsibilities
Are At the Heart of the American System
This commitment to the principle of the sovereignty of the individual
can guide us in profound ways in the coming months and years.
It means that we must have judges who understand that an America that
has driven God from the public square will no longer be the America
that has extended freedom and prosperity for 400 years.
It
means understanding that individual rights and responsibilities are at
the heart of our system, that there are no quotas and no group
identities in the American system.
And it means understanding
that at Jamestown, our first permanent settlement, they established the
principle "if you will not work you will not eat" - not for the poor
but for the aristocrats who thought they could buy their way out of
work. The work ethic was at the heart of our welfare reform in 1996. It
is the most successful conservative reform in modern times. We Must Defend America Against Our Enemies
More than any other of its responsibilities, government's highest
priority must be to defend America against those who would do us harm.
Tragically, under the Obama Administration, we have fallen back into
the utopian fantasies and self deception of the 1977 Carter
Administration and the 1993 Clinton Administration. Again and again the
legalisms and self deceptions of treating enemies as criminals under
these administrations led to more and more disastrous results.
Today, many of the same civil libertarians who believe terrorists
deserve Miranda warnings and civilian trials are in the Obama Justice
Department. It's amazing how many of them come from law firms which
were eagerly giving pro bono representation to alleged terrorists at
Guantanamo Bay. By 3-to-1, Americans Believe We Are Safer with Terrorists at Guantanamo Bay
But Americans know better than to accept utopianism and self-deception
in our national security policy. Nowhere was this more clear than in
the contrast between President Obama's and former Vice President
Cheney's back-to-back speeches on Guantanamo Bay a few weeks ago.
Vice President Cheney had a fairly simple message: The reason we have
Guantanamo Bay is that we have people there who want to kill us. They
are called terrorists. It's good not to have terrorists anywhere near
us because it makes it harder for them to kill us.
President
Obama, on the other hand, used his considerable oratorical gifts to
hide from these fundamental facts. He spoke a lot of words that meant
very little and managed to convey the impression that he didn't
understand the nature of the men being detained at Guantanamo.
The average American listened to Vice President Cheney and President
Obama and understood that one speaker got it and the other one didn't.
By 3-to-1, the American people believe that we are safer with prisoners
in Guantanamo Bay than in America. Economic Freedom Leads to Jobs and Prosperity
Another first principle we must keep in mind while building a
center-right majority is that economic freedom is necessary to building
a productive America with the best jobs and greatest prosperity in the
world.
Here our first principles are particularly clear about the disastrous path our country is on:
We will not have new jobs when bureaucrats micromanage companies.
We will not have prosperity when politicians dominate the economy.
Barney Frank and Chris Dodd are not substitutes for a sound market
economy. And Tim Geithner and Larry Summers are not replacements for
Warren Buffet and Bill Gates We Will Not Have Prosperity When Politicians Dominate the Economy So how do we get back to economic growth? Here, as well, our first principles lead the way:
High taxes kill jobs and growth. Low taxes encourage jobs and growth
Instead of spending $787 billion to reward Democratic interest groups,
an effective economic stimulus would get the money to the people that
work and the businesses that hire them in the form of lower taxes.
-
If we had a two-year, 50% reduction in the Social Security and Medicare
tax for both the employee and the employer, we would have an
extraordinary explosion of small business.
- If we want to compete with China for jobs, we should match the Chinese on capital gains. Their rate is zero.
-
If we want to compete for profitable businesses creating good jobs, we
should adopt the Irish tax rate of 12.5 percent for corporations.
- If we want to build up capital for investments permanently, we should abolish the death tax.
For American Jobs and Prosperity We Need an American Energy Policy Beyond tax policy, for American jobs and prosperity we need an American energy policy.
We need a policy that emphasizes the energy we have in America - from
coal and natural gas to wind and solar - and recognizes that the
problem isn't a lack of resources or innovation. The problem is
government.
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America is the Saudi Arabia of coal and the global leader in technical
and scientific innovation. But both these advantages are weakened by
government policies that favor imports over American energy. If We Are Endowed by Our Creator with Rights, Then Every Child Deserves to Learn We also need to educate our children in order to have future jobs and prosperity.
Now is a time to be bold. If we truly believe that we are endowed by
our creator with certain inalienable rights, then every child deserves
to learn.
We should take President Obama up on his commitment to unlimited charter schools. And we should go much further.
Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander supports giving low income kids the
chance to go to a better school through a proposal called Pell Grants
for Kids. We should welcome the debate about why Pell Grants are good
for after 12, but not good for K-12. "We Carry the Message They Are Waiting For"
At the 1976 Republican convention, having lost the nomination for
president, Ronald Reagan was invited by President Ford to say a few
words.
This is how he closed:
"Better than we have ever
done before, we have got to quit talking to each other and about each
other and go out and communicate to the world that we may be fewer in
numbers than we have ever been, but we carry the message they are
waiting for."
Reagan's advice is as good today as it was in 1976.
We believe in individual human freedom.
We believe in protecting American civilization.
We believe that the future of America is one of prosperity for our children and grandchildren.
Millions of Americans share these beliefs. They're ready to hear our message.
Don't tell me it can't be done.
| | Your friend,
Newt Gingrich |
[Today's newsletter was based on my speech to the Senate-House Annual Dinner. You can watch and read the entire speech at newt.org.] Newt's Quick Links: -
The federal government today spends nearly 400 times more on the
treatment and care of Americans with diabetes than it does on programs
to prevent diabetes. This is grossly misdirected spending.
At
the Center for Health Transformation, we believe that preventative
medicine not only saves lives, its saves money. The National Changing
Diabetes Program agrees, and is calling on Congress and the Obama
Administration to create a National Diabetes Coordinator to develop and
implement a national strategy to prevent and intelligently manage
diabetes in America.
Learn more and sign the petition!
-
I was a little surprised to see that President Obama quoted me in his
health care speech Monday, referencing my frequent use of FedEx as an
example of the world that works. He was talking about electronic health
records, and you can learn more about the Center's health information
technology initiatives HealthTransformation.net.
- And if you haven't seen it before, here is a video of using the Fed Ex example applied to our immigration challenges.
- The paperback edition of my NY Times bestseller, Real Change, is now on sale. It includes a new introduction on the first months of the Obama Presidency. Buy it here.
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