To Save America

by Newt Gingrich

  Our aging infrastructure is becoming uncompetitive in the world market.

  The cost of our government is robbing the economy of vital resources and is piling up debt that will burden the next generation.

  We are sending billions a year to China to pay for interest on the U.S. debt, money that the Chinese invest in more modern and more competitive systems.

  If these trends continue, we will face two grave national security threats, one quantitative and one qualitative.

  Quantitatively, we could face a Chinese competitor a generation from now that can out-manufacture and out-produce the U.S. economy. This would be the first time since 1840 that we would not be the world’s most productive economy. All our great victories for 170 years have relied on our ability to drown our opponents with resources they could not match. America has truly been the arsenal of democracy. Losing this quantitative edge would jeopardize our national security.

  Qualitatively, the Chinese insistence on good education and investment in science and technology could begin to produce capabilities we literally will not understand. The rate of evolution in scientific knowledge is rapidly accelerating, and there is no reason to believe competition with China can be won by a redistributionist, bureaucratic, anti-growth America that protects incompetent schools and favors becoming a lawyer over becoming a scientist or engineer.

  If we allow ourselves to drift into a world in which China is both quantitatively and qualitatively superior to us, we should expect to lose our independence and be forced to exist within the framework of Chinese demands. That would be the end of America as we know it.

  Note that everything we need to do to compete with China is within our own power. If we replace our policies and our institutions with ones that emphasize free markets, individual rights, and rapid economic and energy development, we will mitigate the Chinese threat for the next fifty years.

  The burden is on us, and the challenge is here in America.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Why the Tea Party Movement Is Good for America

  The rise of the tea party movement in 2009 is a great example of the American people’s courageous tradition of rejecting elitism and insisting on freedom.

  The American colonists who rebelled against the British government felt their rights as “free Englishmen”—which they claimed regardless of their ethnic background—were being abused by a tyrannical government whose judges, bureaucrats, and politicians showed no respect for Americans.

  The revolutionary flag depicting a snake with the motto “Don’t tread on me” was another visceral expression of this proud sense of independence. Likewise, the original Boston Tea Party of 1773 was an act of defiance meant to show the British government that it could not impose its will on Americans.

  Having long admired the tea party as a model of political activism, in 1994 I encouraged a friend of mine, Sharon Cooper (now a state representative in Georgia), to write a book called Taxpayer’s Tea Party. Rush Limbaugh wrote the foreword. I led a group to Boston on April 15 that year to protest the Clinton tax increases, an event that helped set the stage for the Contract with America campaign that would result in Republicans winning control of Congress that fall.

  We see a similar energy among grassroots Americans today, propelled by the Left’s arrogant, big-tax, big-spending, big-deficit, politician-centered policies. But the anger actually began simmering earlier, with the bailouts and failed stimulus plans of the late Bush administration. The Obama campaign promised something different—“change you can believe in”—but once in power simply increased federal spending dramatically with even more bailouts and an even bigger stimulus bill.

  The spark that transformed widespread outrage into a political movement was lit on February 19, 2009, with the now-famous rant by CNBC correspondent Rick Santelli. Appalled at President Obama’s bailout of people with delinquent mortgages, Santelli exclaimed on live TV, “How many of you want to pay for your neighbor’s mortgage?” He continued, “President Obama, are you listening? People are of the notion that you can’t buy your way into prosperity. . . . If you read our Founding Fathers, people like Benjamin Franklin and Jefferson . . . what we’re doing in this country now is making them roll over in their graves!”1

  The original American rebels had committees of correspondence; the 2009 rebels had the Internet. Clips of Santelli’s rant went viral as Americans, just as in 1773, began thinking and talking about their rights, responsibilities, and what it means to be an American. Inspired by this discussion, an estimated 30,000 people attended tea parties in fifty cities on February 27, 2009.

  Despite the efforts of the elite media to either ignore or downplay the tea partiers, the movement grew rapidly, with an estimated 1.2 million people attending tea parties in over 850 locations on tax day, April 15, 2009.

  I had the honor of speaking at the New York City tea party, which drew an estimated 12,500 attendees. There, I got to know Kellen Giuda, one of the main organizers. I was impressed by his ability to organize using mediums like Facebook, Twitter, and email. Kellen explained,As a new small businessman, it became surreal to think about how government could get away with spending close to a trillion dollars with smokescreens and no accountability to the public. In the private sector, you don’t believe people that come to you with smokescreen business plans.

  I got increasingly angry and concerned with the Bush administration’s spending and stimulus plans. Obama’s put me over the top. For the first time, I started publicly expressing my views through Facebook, and started realizing that my concerns and anger were more widespread. And after Rick Santelli’s rant, I noticed that people were beginning to organize Tea Parties on Feb 27, 2009. So I organized a protest of my own at City Hall on Feb 27 and 300 people showed up. It was shocking to me—the diversity that was there, every walk of life, different demographics.

  After Feb. 27, I wasn’t sure where things were going, but it was clear that people wanted more, so much so that they starting getting together on their own. So I started organizing for 4/15. I felt compelled to continue on until our government fundamentally rethinks its relationship with the American people.

  Remarkably, like the British in 1773, the elite media today misunderstand and mock the frustration of American tea partiers. Since the elite media believe in big government, big bureaucracy, and high taxes, and since they love the way President Obama is delivering that agenda, they think tea partiers’ grievances are unjustified. This bias was perfectly captured in the April 15, 2009, interview of a Chicago tea party attendee by then-CNN reporter Susan Roesgen. As an attendee is responding to a question from Roesgen by explaining Lincoln’s thinking on constitutional rights, Roesgen interrupts him and asks, “Sir, what does that have to do with your taxes? Do you realize that you’re eligible for a $400 credit?”

  This is the same condescending arrogance that the British showed in assuming Americans would accept taxation without representation as long as the East India Company kept tea prices low.

  Since the tea party movement is rooted in individual liberty and skepticism of centralized power, it’s logical that the movement is evolving differently all over the country. Skeptical of any efforts to be controlled or cajoled by national organizations, personalities, or political parties, the movement is growing stronger and larger as it retains its decentralized structure. While tea party leaders agree on broad principles such as limited government, lower taxes, and individual liberty, they address different issues in different areas.

  Through American Solutions (and especially Adam Waldeck, who coordinates American Solutions’ activities with tea partiers), I have met with tea party leaders and organizers across the country, listening and learning about what drives them and what they’re doing. Here are some examples:• Contract From America, led by Ryan Hecker of the Tea Party Patriots, is a campaign to ask Americans what policies they want, vote on the best ones, and then present candidates and elected officials with a platform decided upon by the Amer
ican people. This could help to define the 2010 elections in a way similar to what the House GOP did in 1994.

  • The Ohio Liberty Council effort, led in part by Mike Wilson and Chris Littleton in Cincinnati, Ohio, is an alliance of tens of thousands of grassroots Americans and tea partiers across Ohio. Hundreds of people are showing up at neighborhood meetings in bars and restaurants to discuss issues and plan actions.

  • Some local organizations, like the Dallas Tea Party, are organizing at the precinct level, registering people to vote by going door to door in their neighborhoods.

  • In the Scottsdale, Arizona area, Honey Marques is organizing rallies at her congressman’s district offices, while Diane Burnett is learning to create websites to help coordinate tea party efforts across the state.

  • In California, tea party leaders are working to break the cycle of public corruption imposed by the bureaucratic government unions that allows them to perpetually fund the legislative machine in Sacramento.

  What will be the tea party movement’s ultimate impact? We don’t know yet, as it is evolving before our eyes. The change we need to save America will not come with one election cycle, but we are beginning to see campaigns, electoral victories, and energetic grassroots action that should give us all hope.

  Undoubtedly, the approval of the Democrats’ healthcare reform bill was a blow to freedom. But that was an act of politicians, not the people. Note that the bill was not the reform that candidate Obama had endorsed when the people elected him. In fact, he had specifically repudiated a key part of the reform—the individual mandate—during the Democratic primary.

  Since Obama’s election, the people have rendered their judgment on his policies through the ballot box. The victories of Bob McDonnell in Virginia, Chris Christie in New Jersey, and Scott Brown in Massachusetts all demonstrate a roiling dissatisfaction with the direction Obama is taking this country. These victories are also strong indicators of the influence of the tea party movement, in that the winning messages of these three candidates were rooted in tea party principles of lower taxes, smaller government, and individual liberty.

  This is not a movement of any one party. While the recent GOP victories are good for the movement, success will also require moderate, small-government Democrats to beat the secular-socialist machine’s candidates in Democratic districts.

  The tea party movement is an extraordinary development in the great tradition of American citizen action. It should give us cause for optimism in these dark days. Although we are facing a tenacious opponent, the American people are energized for the fight.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  American Solutions

  The challenges facing America are so fundamental they will shape the very nature of our lives over the next 40-70 years. These challenges include: the growing power of the secular-socialist machine; the importance of scientific and technological innovation; the growing influence of China and India; the nation’s ineffective bureaucratic and litigation systems; the need for cultural reaffirmation of American values; and our government’s remoteness from and arrogance toward the American people it is supposed to represent and serve.

  I encourage every American to engage in active citizenship and that’s best done at American Solutions, where I serve as general chairman. As a citizen action network of more than 1.5 million members, including 30,000 small business owners, American Solutions’ goal is to unite a majority of Republicans, Democrats, and independents in a tri-partisan coalition to support the next generation of solutions that will ensure the United States remains the safest, freest, and most prosperous country in the world.

  In 2010, American Solutions’ objectives are three-fold: to stop the radical Obama-Pelosi-Reid agenda; to develop the best solutions at every level of government; and to begin to train candidates and elected officials to implement the kind of real change that is so desperately needed to save America.

  The first, easiest step you can take is to visit our website at www.AmericanSolutions.com, where you can:• Become a member of American Solutions.

  • Find links to our Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking sites.

  • Join your local American Solutions Real Change chapter.

  • Help organize and participate in a Solutions Day/ Town Hall program in your community.

  • Participate in our Small Business Program, the Jobs and Prosperity Task Force.

  • Provide financial support to continue developing proven solutions to the problems facing America.

  American Solutions is dedicated to advocating replacement solutions that work. Denouncing the Left’s failed programs and machine politics is important, but it is not enough. If you want to learn about practical alternatives like the ones presented in this book, visit the American Solutions website. It aims to convince you of one thing: there is a better way to create a better future for our children, our grandchildren, and our country.

  THE SOLUTIONS ACADEMY

  Turning America’s current problems into opportunities is the great challenge of our generation. While the frustration is with politics and the problems are with government, we need to focus on a deeper challenge that exists on four levels:• Intellectual

  • Cultural

  • Political

  • Governmental

  We first have to think through what has to be done.

  Then we have to learn to communicate our solutions so Americans will support them.

  Then we have to win the political struggle to defeat those in both parties who are stuck in old, obsolete, destructive patterns, and to elect people dedicated to the new thinking and new solutions.

  Finally, our new coalition of those committed to the right values, the right language, and the right solutions has to translate political victory into profound changes in government.

  There are no institutions that work on all four levels of the challenge. Many do a good job at one part or another, but no one puts it all together into one coherent approach.

  Until now. To address all four levels of the challenge, American Solutions is working to identify and promote positive solutions that can help create a better America, and to energetically oppose the bad policies that threaten our prosperity. It will take great effort and many citizen leaders to help people remember and understand what has made America great and what it will take to keep her great.

  That is where the Solutions Academy comes in.

  The Solutions Academy is an online learning and training center for elected officials, candidates, and citizen leaders. While equipping these individuals to more effectively lead, communicate, and persuade, the academy will also advise them how to take specific actions to support the adoption and implementation of policy solutions that will advance America’s safety, prosperity, and freedom.

  The Solutions Academy will offer individual lessons in subject areas such as the economy, energy, education, corruption, and core values and principles. In the energy section, for instance, you will find lessons on offshore drilling, nuclear power, renewable energy, and the dangers of a cap-and-trade energy tax, just to name a few. Each lesson will include a wide variety of compelling content in the form of video, audio, research, polling data, handouts, and recommended reading.

  In addition to the public policy lessons, the Solutions Academy will include lessons on running for office and leading in office that will teach skills such as effective communications, fundraising, social media, and grassroots organizing. Candidates will also be able to listen to podcasts to get advice from candidates and their senior advisors, such as Virginia governor Bob McDonnell and his campaign chairman Ed Gillespie, on what made their campaign successful.

  In short, the Solutions Academy is a rich resource to help elected officials formulate legislative solutions, help candidates create campaign platforms, and help citizen leaders stay informed and get the tools to persuade their friends and family about the solutions to advance American prosperity and freedom.i

  Today, the marketpl
ace of ideas is dominated by a left-wing media, academia, and pop culture that equip citizens, either directly or indirectly, with destructive training in bad ideas that run counter to classic and successful American values and principles.

  If we are to save America, we need a growing and active group of elected officials at every level of government, candidates for those offices, and citizen leaders who can persuasively communicate the values, principles, and solutions that will ensure a safe, prosperous, and free America.

  CONCLUSION

  Citizenship and Saving America

  “The land of the free and the home of the brave.” There is a reason our national anthem’s first verse ends with those words. The generations who created America fought terrible wars against overwhelming odds. They deeply believed freedom required bravery. Unless we were the home of the brave, we would not remain free.

  That principle is as true today as it was when Francis Scott Key wrote the words to “The Star Spangled Banner.” If the American people do not have the courage to work and fight for their freedom, they will not remain free. Bravery is not just a battlefield phenomenon.

  Bravery is a parent protesting a bad policy to her school board.

  Bravery is a student challenging his teachers when they propagandize factually incorrect accounts of U.S. history.

  Bravery is a politician fighting to reform a powerful bureaucracy.

  Bravery is a conservative faculty member risking the loss of tenure and even the loss of her job by standing firm for her beliefs.

  Bravery is a businessman risking an audit or worse by speaking out against government intrusion into the private sector.

  Bravery is a woman speaking up for life among feminists who will accuse her of being anti-woman.