Newt’s nutty cure is worse than the disease
Earlier, Rotten and we concurred that Randy Kuhl and other Congressional Republicans will have to move past childish name-calling and adopt an actual agenda if they’re going to have any chance to survive in November. It seems that Newt Gingrich, of all people agrees with us. Problem is, the agenda he suggests is even more absurd than Randy’s current rhetoric and will have little appeal in this area beyond the D&C blog crowd. Here are some of Newt’s suggestions:
1. Repeal the gas tax for the summer
5. Overhaul the census and cut its budget radically.
7. Declare English the official language of government.
In fairness, they’re not all quite this ridiculous. But let’s focus on these for now. We’ve seen before that everyone with half a brain knows number one is a stupid idea. As for number two, the census is in fact badly underfunded and only the 28 percenters will get excited cutting it further. Number 7, like all anti-immigrant measures, is a slow form of political suicide.
It’s amazing. Even when Republicans agree that they have to do something serious, they don’t talk about real issues like Iraq, or health care, or the financial crisis, or the rising cost of food and fuel. They come up with distractions.
Voters will see through this, at least in this part of the country.
You do know the consortium “Real Change” he leads is made up of Conservatives, Democrats, Independents, Progressives, and Republicans, right? These ideas aren’t his alone. They have been arrived at by the group. You’re certainly welcome to disagree with them but you can’t just point the finger at Newt or Republicans.
Look at this list and tell me it’s most 80% symbolic bs. I read the article in hopes that Newt had something substantive to say since I’ve seen him say reasonable things in interviews recently. I was disappointed.
dood - I was curious as to who is part of Newt’s “consortium” that helped arrive at these ideas. This was a personal post, authored by Newt, posted front-page as the Feature Article on Newt’s personal website, and attributed to no other group, and “signed” by Newt.
I searched high and low for anything online linking these thoughts to anyone but Newt, or any organization that Newt belongs to, but could find none.
Call me a Doubting Thomas (yes, even progressives teach Sunday School), but in this case I have to believe these are Newt’s personal thoughts and words unless you can show me a list of others who contributed.
I can’t tell you how many times I have heard someone say “If only there was a politician who would cut the census budget…”
Okay, yes, I can tell you, it has been exactly zero times.
Congratulations on a very well-said paragraph: