Washington, D.C-- Newt Gingrich was the closing speaker for the American Legislative Exchange Council’s three-day States and Nation Policy Summit held at the Grand Hyatt. Gingrich, a staunch Trump supporter, noted in his remarks that the GOP won, but the work of governing has only just begun, adding that he told the president-elect that he won the ticket to the dance, but that’s about it. He now needs to prove he can dance, deliver on some of his promises, and prepare for re-election at the same time. It’s the usual process for the many presidents that assumed office before Trump. He also tore into the elites, noting that these are people who are good at writing essays, but wouldn’t know how to implement anything.
He said that around 40 percent of the elite, worldwide, could craft the most magnificent guide to changing a tire, but when it came down to it—they wouldn’t know the first thing to do. It’s a vicious cycle. These elites are filled with people who know how to write good essays, who then went to schools who were taught by teacher and professors…who could also wrote great essays.
Now, with Trump assuming the presidency, you have these daily attacks against him by the professional media from the editorial boards of The New York Times and The Washington Post that spew nonsense about the president-elect. The number one issue at the moment is his new Trump International Hotel. CNN even has a conflict of interest watch in their coverage of the transition. It’s insane. Gingrich added that it’s astonishingly stupid that the elite media would ignore conflict of interest issues with the Clintons for the past decade, but focus on Trump’s D.C. hotel.
To the Left, there could be a bribery issue since ambassadors of nations would have to pay the bill for their stay. Right, and did we miss the fact that Trump is already worth billions of dollars. An $8,000 stay is going to influence how he handles trade with China; someone needs to stop sniffing glue.
Gingrich added that these elites also learn to feign seriousness, which drew laughter from the crowd. The former House Speaker also noted the position of the Republican Party. We’re the dominant political force in the country. We have 52 senators, 239 members of congress (with 7,000 supporting staff) the White House, 34 governorships (now 33...NC's Pat McCrory conceded to Democrat Roy Cooper), 25 states have united GOP state governments running them, and over 4,100 elected state lawmakers in office—the most ever since the Republican Party was created.
Yet, the GOP has to deliver. There are no excuses now.
The former speaker noted how Trump is intuitive; he knows the nature of the crowd, feeds on it, and he knows his opponents on the stage. It gives him an advantage when it comes to pummeling his opponents, which we saw during the 2016 GOP primary. Gingrich said that Trump has the disruptive nature of Andrew Jackson, which many found appealing, especially in the areas where he dominated; those white working class counties that dot the Great Lakes.
What about the future? What will be Trumpism? Well, from what his supporters see, it’s very good. He hunkered down a deal with Carrier Corp., kept 1,000 jobs in Indiana in exchange for $7 million in tax breaks over the next ten years. Gingrich used the Wollman Rink to showcase Trump’s experience in getting things done; something that the essay writers wouldn’t know a thing about.
The ice rink was closed in 1980 for a period of six years for renovations that soared into the millions of dollars--$13 million to be exact. It couldn’t create ice. It was a source of embarrassment for the city. And Trump decided to heckle then-Mayor Ed Koch about his failure to get the rink operational again. Gingrich added that the city sought the help from a firm in Florida to fix the rink. Tired of Trump’s criticism, Koch gave Trump $3 million and six months to fix it. Trump did fix it two months ahead of schedule, and under budget. As David Freedlander of Bloomberg noted, the success of this project was to show the private sector’s superiority in getting results than government. Period.
Before the question and answer period, Gingrich said that one thing that will be a cornerstone of Trumpism is changing broken systems. The speaker said that the Congressional Budget Office was so off in their analysis with the Obama care numbers that it should be dissolved—and that maybe handing over cost-benefit analyses to several firms on a competitive bidding process should be the new way of crunching the numbers. Why keep the CBO? Well, I suppose some on the Hill would say because that’s how we’ve always done things. That mindset isn’t just confined to Washington; it’s in every state legislature in the country.
Gingrich simply said that if you see something stupid, change it. Bureaucrats will say this is how things are done, even before we had pencils.
“Well, have you heard of iPads,” said Gingrich. He said that these folks would say that’s a different situation, and that it would a lot of workers wouldn’t have anything to do if certain systems were streamlined.
“There’s a hint there,” he said.
On a side note, if you haven’t been following ALEC, you should. It’s a hub for state legislators, policy wonks, and the private sector to craft legislation to deal with a whole host of issues such as education reform, criminal justice reform, tax reform, pension reform, reforming labor laws, and free speech. They’re also the booegyman for the Left, who think they’re a shadowy conservative organization with a pernicious agenda. The organization was under siege after the 2012 Trayvon Martin shooting in Florida, where they lost some corporate donors over their support for Stand Your Ground laws. The latest attempt to take a swipe at ALEC was over an allegation that they’re violating their nonprofit status in October. Of course, ALEC denied the allegations. At the time, ALEC’s vice president of public affairs, Bill Meierling, issued this statement:
ALEC has not formally received a complaint or notice of investigation from the IRS. It is highly likely ALEC will not receive notice. The Common Cause and Center for Media and Democracy campaign serves their own fundraising purposes alone.These routine, frivolous complaints delivered to the media--and later to the IRS--seek only headlines where no wrongdoing has taken place.
So far, there are no new updates on the case.