Gingrich Wants Bipartisan Dialogue

On Meet the Press, Gingrich said Republicans and Democrats need to have a bipartisan dialogue but he also said:

if you represent a party whose contract is with San Francisco and Vermont, you can hardly explain what your future is. I mean, Congresswoman Pelosi cannot explain what her speakership would be because it would be so far to the left they would guarantee the Republicans re-election. So I was saying partly they can’t possibly put together a contract with America because Howard Dean and Nancy Pelosi and, and, and their allies are so far to the left. They can’t be clear what they would do—raise taxes, create more big bureaucracy, have a much weaker system of defending America … The country would love for Republicans to be solid on this, the country does not want to go back to a left-wing Democratic majority

We love you too, Newt.

Roger Ailes catches Newt’s bloviation, which included a defense of the warrantless wiretapping program as being totally legal. Newt suggested he was never unfair to Speaker Jim Wright as Newt denied that he personally ever had ethical lapses. And listening to his neocon nonsense, I suspect this post applied to Newt as well. But the real howlers came when Newt talked about fiscal policy and economics.

He wanted to claim that the deficit fell during the 1990’s mainly because his leadership reduced domestic spending dramatically. Never mind the fact that only defense spending fell as a share of GDP in any appreciable way. Newt even tried to suggest that the “starve the beast” hypothesis works.

Newt failed to mention the increase in taxes as a share of GDP was the main reason for the improvement in the fiscal situation during Clinton’s tenure as all Newt wanted to do is to take credit for the first tax cut in 17 years.

Newt wanted to make those bogus free lunch supply side claims that the Reagan and Bush tax cuts led to more growth – not less. I guess he could not admit that the 1990’s boom followed the 1993 tax increase – the one he opposed and the real reason that the deficit fell. As Sebastian Mallaby suggests – we are witnessing the Return of Voodoo Economics.

I would love to see an honest, bipartisan dialogue of the policy issues. But please don’t invite serial liars like Newt Gingrich – especially if their favorite stooge (Tim Russert) moderates.