Heirs of Liberty Press

New Gingrich

C. Gialluca, Columnist / Reporter

Newt Gingrich was born Newton Leroy McPherson on June 17, 1943, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. His mother raised him by herself until she married Robert Gingrich, who then adopted Newt. Gingrich was part of a career military family, moving a number of times while growing up and attending school at various military installations. He ultimately graduated from Baker High School in Columbus, Georgia, in 1961. His experiences as the son of a career soldier convinced him at an early age to dedicate his life to his country and to the protection of freedom. Realizing the importance of understanding the past in order to protect the future, he immersed himself in the study of history, receiving his Bachelor’s degree from Emory University and Master’s and Doctorate in Modern European History from Tulane University. Before his election to Congress, he taught History and Environmental Studies at West Georgia College for eight years.

Newt was first elected to Congress in 1978 where he served the Sixth District of Georgia for twenty years. In 1995, he was elected Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives where he served until 1999. The Washington Times has called him “the indispensable leader” and Time magazine, in naming him Man of the Year for 1995, said, “Leaders make things possible. Exceptional leaders make them inevitable. Newt Gingrich belongs in the category of the exceptional.”

Newt Gingrich is well-known as the architect of the “Contract with America” that led the Republican Party to victory in 1994 by capturing the majority in the U.S. House for the first time in forty years. After he was elected Speaker, he disrupted the status quo by moving power out of Washington and back to the American people. Under his leadership, Congress passed welfare reform, passed the first balanced budget in a generation, and passed the first tax cut in sixteen years. In addition, the Congress restored funding to strengthen our defense and intelligence capabilities, an action later lauded by the bipartisan 9/11 Commission.

From Gingrich's five challenges: "No serious nation in the age of terror can afford to have wide-open borders with millions of illegal aliens crossing at will."
Gingrich supports a "guest worker program" for foreign workers, meaning that an undetermined number of foreign workers would be allowed to come to the United States and work for a period of time, then return to their home country. Gingrich also supports the idea of allowing some of these guest workers to become citizens. In his book Winning the Future, he says:
"Along with total border control, we must make it easier for people who enter the United States legally, to work for a set period of time, obey the law, and return home. The requirements for participation in a worker visa program should be tough and uncompromising. The first is essential: Everyone currently working in the United States illegal must return to their home country to apply for the worker visa program. Anything less than requiring those who are here illegally to return home to apply for legal status is amnesty, plain and simple."
He has stated that he believes that global warming is indeed an occurring phenomenon: "My message, I think, is that the evidence is sufficient that we should move toward the most effective possible steps to reduce carbon loading in the atmosphere." Gingrich's environmental ideas were revealed in his book, A Contract with the Earth. Gingrich supports tax breaks to mitigate carbon emissions instead of regulations such as cap-and-trade. Gingrich claims to have a commitment to conservation efforts.
In late 2008, Gingrich voiced his strong opposition to allowing American taxpayers to bail out several failing financial institutions. He described the $700 billion bailout plan as "just wrong" and that "it's likely to fail, and it's likely to make the situation worse over time." He changed his mind by September 29 and decided that he would "reluctantly and sadly" support it.
Newt Gingrich is Chairman of the Gingrich Group, a communications and consulting firm that specializes in transformational change, with offices in Atlanta and Washington, DC . He serves as General Chairman of American Solutions for Winning the Future (www.americansolutions.com), is a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC, a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California and is an Honorary Chairman of the NanoBusiness Alliance. Newt is also a news and political analyst for the Fox News Channel.

Besides politics, Gingrich has authored a book, Rediscovering God in America, attempting to demonstrate that the Founding Fathers actively intended the new republic to not only allow, but encourage religious expression in the public square. Since Gingrich has, "dedicated much of his time to calling America back to our Christian heritage."