Paychecks or Food Stamps?

Newt Gingrich continues to earn my respect and trust. He’s made some mistakes in his long political career, but at this stage in this life, he is one of the clearest voices for a return to faith, family, and freedom that exists in America.

I don’t generally think in terms or political parties, or “left” and “right.” I think terms of right and wrong, and in the coming elections it is the Republicans who have it right.

This insightful column puts the November 2 election in simple and stark terms. Though flawed and badly wounded by years of poor national stewardship, the Republican Party is being re-born through the Tea Party Movement and is returning to its Judeo-Christian principles of limited government and biblical principles of liberty. On the other side, the Democratic Party continues to lurch down the road toward socialism and moral confusion.

Newt Gingrich believes that the contrast couldn’t be clearer in 2010.

One party believes in paychecks and the other in food stamps.

What kind of America do you want? Your vote, one week from today, will take us one direction or the other.

Vote for liberty, paychecks, and the human dignity that they bring. RB 

October 13, 2010

The Food Stamp Party “Doth Protest too Much”

by Newt Gingrich

There is a famous line from Hamlet: “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”

In Shakespeare’s play, Queen Gertrude is referring to what she believes are overwrought vows from a Queen pledging fidelity to her King.

In modern times, the phrase has come to signify the tendency of a guilty party to so passionately insist on their innocence that they suggest their guilt.

Last week, we highlighted a memo I sent to candidates across the country suggesting the closing argument for the 2010 campaign be a choice between the Democratic Party of food stamps and the Republican Party of paychecks.

Watching Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats’ reaction to that memo, one couldn’t help but think “the lady doth protest too much.”

More food stamps or more paychecks? The choice for America November 2nd

The difference between the record of the Nancy Pelosi Democrats since they assumed control of Congress in 2007 and the last time Republicans took control of Congress in 1995 could not be starker.

From 1995-1999, when I was Speaker, unemployment fell from 5.6% to 4.2% and food stamp usage dropped by almost 9 million to an enrollment of a little more than 18 million Americans. That’s because we pursued a job-creating agenda of controlling spending, cutting taxes, reforming government and balancing the budget.

Compare this to the record of Speaker Pelosi, who since 2007 has presided over a rise in unemployment from 4.6% to 9.6% and an increase in the number of food stamp recipients from 26.5 million to a record 41.8 million–more than one in eight Americans.

That’s an additional 15 million Americans depending on government for nutrition, thanks to the Democrats’ job-killing agenda of higher taxes, bigger government, and more spending.

This record legitimately makes the Democrats the party of food stamps.

Meanwhile, Republicans have outlined a pro-growth, less spending, low tax, reform agenda for government similar to our program from 1995 to 1999 that resulted in less Americans on food stamps and more Americans receiving paychecks.

This legitimately makes the Republicans the party of paychecks. The food stamp party doth protest too much

Faced with the crippling reality of her record, Speaker Pelosi and the rest of the food stamp party have reacted to this accurate contrast in a way Queen Gertrude would find familiar.

Last week, Speaker Pelosi again made the absurd claim that food stamps and unemployment insurance are the best way to create jobs, rather than serve as a safety net for those who have lost their jobs. In addition, Speaker Pelosi hysterically accused me of trying to “stomp on the poor.”

Speaker Pelosi and the rest of the food stamp party are desperately trying to spin the accurate and devastating contrast between the Democratic Party of food stamps and the Republican Party of paychecks as a threat to take food stamps away from the poor and unemployed who need them.

But they ignore the actual historic record that repudiates their baseless attack. During my tenure as Speaker, we didn’t eliminate the food stamp program; we were, however, able to reduce the number of people receiving food stamps by pursuing paycheck policies instead of food stamp policies. Millions of poor and unemployed people went off food stamps as they took up jobs and work.

It may cause Speaker Pelosi a conniption to hear it, but it turns out that paycheck policies are better for the poor than food stamp policies. Far from stomping on the poor, the Republican Congress from 1995-1999 did more to help the poor by giving them jobs than the Democratic Congress has during the last four years under Speaker Pelosi.

Drawing the contrast between food stamp policies and paycheck policies is not an attack on food stamps or on those who depend on the program for nutrition. It is an attack on the job killing policies of the Democrats that have led to more Americans needing food stamps. And it is a pledge to enact job creating policies of lower taxes, smaller government and less spending—the same formula that worked when I was Speaker, leading to more Americans with paychecks and fewer Americans with food stamps.

Don’t let the howls of protest from the food stamp party deter you. They’re just resorting to the same lies and distortions they always employ when faced with the failure of their radical left-wing agenda.

This time it’s not going to work. Americans are fed up with all the spending, all the taxing, and all the big government programs that are killing jobs. And they are going to make their voices heard on Election Day by electing job creating, “paycheck” candidates across the country.

How many “paycheck” candidates are elected is up to you.

At American Solutions, we have launched a project to bring 10 million new Americans to the polls on November 2. It’s called 10MillionVoters.com. Our website gives you easy ways to use Facebook, Twitter and other tools to maximize turnout for conservative candidates this fall. You can also recruit your friends to the effort. Click here to get started.

You can donate to specific, high value campaigns we have targeted at SolutionsPac.com. For instance, here are five key Congressional races we are highlighting this week.

The bottom line is this: there are just 20 days left until Election Day.

It’s time to win.

It’s time to win this election for every small business owner who has been crippled by the job-killing polices of this administration and Congress.

It’s time to win this election for every young American who will graduate in a few months into an increasingly bleak job market.

It’s time to win this election for every American family dependent on food stamps yearning for the independence of a paycheck.

In short, it’s time to win this election for every American.

Let’s get it done.

Your friend,

Newt Gingrich