Newt Gingrich to GOP Candidates: Make Democrats the Party of Food Stamps

AP

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich today published a memo to Republican candidates urging them to cast the Democratic Party as the party of food stamps while calling the GOP the party of paychecks.

Gingrich urged candidates to make that message their "closing argument" to voters in the final weeks of the election season.

"A closing argument is the central choice you want voters to have in mind as they head to the voting booths," Gingrich wrote. "It should be very simple and resonate at a personal, emotional level with the American people."

In 1980, Ronald Reagan offered "Morning in America" as his closing argument, Gingrich said, and in 1994, Republicans presented their "Contract with America" as their closing argument. Gingrich was a coauthor of the latter document.

This year, he said, the House Republicans' Pledge to America "has set the stage for a powerful, symbolic closing argument for candidates seeking to unseat the left-wing, big spending, job killing Democrats: paychecks versus food stamps."

The former speaker pointed out that the number of Americans receiving food stamps rose to record levels this year. "It turns out that Barack Obama's idea of spreading the wealth around was spreading more food stamps around," he wrote. Unemployment, he noted, has climbed from 4.6 percent in 2007 to 9.6 percent today.

Republicans should compare those figures to those from the era of the 1994 Republican-led Congress, Gingrich argued, stating that in four years, unemployment fell, food stamp usage dropped, and the deficit was turned into a surplus.

"You can use this vivid contrast between the record of the Pelosi-Reid Democratic Congress and the last time the Republican Party took control of Congress," wrote Gingrich, who has repeatedly suggested he is considering a presidential run in 2012.

Candidates should also highlight the fact that the Democrats have not yet extended the Bush tax cuts, Gingrich said, to hammer home the food stamps vs. paychecks argument.

"Small business owners who may be considering hiring new employees must now operate under the assumption that their taxes will rise in January," he wrote. "That means a smart businessman will decline to hire anyone new since there will soon be less money to pay their employees. In other words, more food stamps, fewer paychecks."

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Stephanie Condon is a political reporter for CBSNews.com. You can read more of her posts here. Follow Hotsheet on Facebook and Twitter.

[AnonymousIV]

Being Poor
by John Scalzi

Being poor is knowing exactly how much everything costs.
Being poor is getting angry at your kids for asking for all the crap they see on TV.
Being poor is having to keep buying $800 cars because they?re what you can afford, and then having the cars break down on you, because there?s not an $800 car in America that?s worth a damn.
Being poor is hoping the toothache goes away.
Being poor is knowing your kid goes to friends? houses but never has friends over to yours.
Being poor is going to the restroom before you get in the school lunch line so your friends will be ahead of you and won?t hear you say ?I get free lunch? when you get to the cashier.
Being poor is living next to the freeway.
Being poor is coming back to the car with your children in the back seat, clutching that box of Raisin Bran you just bought and trying to think of a way to make the kids understand that the box has to last.
Being poor is wondering if your well-off sibling is lying when he says he doesn?t mind when you ask for help.
Being poor is off-brand toys.
Being poor is a heater in only one room of the house.
Being poor is knowing you can?t leave $5 on the coffee table when your friends are around.
Being poor is hoping your kids don?t have a growth spurt.
Being poor is stealing meat from the store, frying it up before your mom gets home and then telling her she doesn?t have make dinner tonight because you?re not hungry anyway.
Being poor is Goodwill underwear.
Being poor is not enough space for everyone who lives with you.
Being poor is feeling the glued soles tear off your supermarket shoes when you run around the playground.
Being poor is your kid?s school being the one with the 15-year-old textbooks and no air conditioning.
Being poor is thinking $8 an hour is a really good deal.
Being poor is relying on people who don?t give a damn about you.
Bing poor is an overnight shift under florescent lights.
Being poor is finding the letter your mom wrote to your dad, begging him for the child support.
Being poor is a bathtub you have to empty into the toilet.
Being poor is stopping the car to take a lamp from a stranger?s trash.
Being poor is making lunch for your kid when a cockroach skitters over the bread, and you looking over to see if your kid saw.
Being poor is believing a GED actually makes a ********* difference.
Being poor is people angry at you just for walking around in the mall.
Being poor is not taking the job because you can?t find someone you trust to watch your kids.
Being poor is the police busting into the apartment right next to yours.
Being poor is not talking to that girl because she?ll probably just laugh at your clothes.
Being poor is hoping you?ll be invited for dinner.
Being poor is a sidewalk with lots of brown glass on it.
Being poor is people thinking they know something about you by the way you talk.
Being poor is needing that 35-cent raise.
Being poor is your kid?s teacher assuming you don?t have any books in your home.
Being poor is six dollars short on the utility bill and no way to close the gap.
Being poor is crying when you drop the mac and cheese on the floor.
Being poor is knowing you work as hard as anyone, anywhere.
Being poor is people surprised to discover you?re not actually stupid.
Being poor is people surprised to discover you?re not actually lazy.
Being poor is a six-hour wait in an emergency room with a sick child asleep on your lap.
Being poor is never buying anything someone else hasn?t bought first.
Being poor is picking the 10 cent ramen instead of the 12 cent ramen because that?s two extra packages for every dollar.
Being poor is having to live with choices you didn?t know you made when you were 14 years old.
Being poor is getting tired of people wanting you to be grateful.
Being poor is knowing you?re being judged.
Being poor is a box of crayons and a $1 coloring book from a community center Santa.
Being poor is deciding that it?s all right to base a relationship on shelter.
Being poor is knowing you really shouldn?t spend that buck on a Lotto ticket.
Being poor is hoping the register lady will spot you the dime.
Being poor is feeling helpless when your child makes the same mistakes you did, and won?t listen to you beg them against doing so.
Being poor is a cough that doesn?t go away.
Being poor is making sure you don?t spill on the couch, just in case you have to give it back before the lease is up.
Being poor is a $200 paycheck advance from a company that takes $250 when the paycheck comes in.
Being poor is four years of night classes for an Associates of Art degree.
Being poor is a lumpy futon bed.
Being poor is knowing where the shelter is.
Being poor is people who have never been poor wondering why you choose to be so.
Being poor is knowing how hard it is to stop being poor.
Being poor is seeing how few options you have.
Being poor is running in place.
Being poor is people wondering why you didn?t leave.

[buckinham51]

While the Repubs are closer to a solution to the jobless state, both Dems and Repubs fall short of a real answer to our woes. The Dems rise in food stamps and unemployment dole-outs is a waste of money. And so is their job growth via road construction. The Repubs traditionally throw money to business via tax breaks. Close, but, no cigar. Even a third-grader should be able to figure this one out. Any and every registered business should be compensated for adding " New " employees for as long as they stay with a company and as long as the program continues as needed. It's not rocket science folks. People need jobs. And while we're on the suject, the next time you're at ' Walmart ' if the box says " Made in China ,VietNam,India, etc. etc. etc. " Don't Buy It "

[SAFEtrux]

Newt is another Neo Nazi propagadist,,,,,i spell that right?

[hhandyman]

Under Republican rules the common man lost his income since the republicans failed to inforce the rules on stockmarket and backed off reuglations on banks so the rich chould make more cash off the depositors and rip off the mortgage holders the high sell desires of Rich to people that could not afford the payments but had to make quita on loans so the bottom line lookd bigger than the money suppily could pay out theres the cost and why so many food stamps are issued.. not to mention the low pay of PFC where most are on food stamps and have government job of defending the Republican Oil grounds (woops did i say that out loud) ghee it seems that Bush bloood for energy program istn working so well

[gep1955]

Recently had a house for rent. A prospective tenant said she had been receiving housing assistance for 10 years. You mean to tell me that my taxes keep going up so this leach and all the new sign ups can continue to suck the financial life out of my city for another 10 years and beyond. People refuse to work because the liberal agenda makes sure they don't have to. The result is the current condition of the country. Its coming to an end on Nov 2nd. If it doesn't, the videos of riots in Greece will be replayed in every American city. But liberals like that sort of thing.

[AnonymousIV]

Is this view commonality of the poor, or just an extreme case, you look at to justify your ends?

[gep1955]

There is no reason other than mental retardation to not be sucessful in America. Inumerable laws have been passed and services made available to make sure all citizens have access to the information needed to be able to better your standing in society. Poor because of no education? Take public transportation to a public library and start reading books/access computers and learn something. Don't tell me there needs to be more gov't programs, there's too many already.

[dinkydog1]

by chevyhotrod October 6, 2010 9:02 AM EDT
Presidents do not balance budgets or create surpluses, that responsibility belongs to congress, not one man. Who controlled congress during the Clinton Administration?
.............................................................................


Don't be silly, everone (except you) knows that cuts in military budgets created the Clinton budget surpluses and the Repubs fought these cuts tooth and nail.

[ouchitatom]

I guess by what newt says is us diabled veterans and veterans of foriegn war that have ptsd but still have working arms and legs should be attempting to do a job that we can't get because the people who hire are afraid og the mental state of thier veterans.Where do you draw the line ? Where is line ? Just exactly who should and shoud not receive food stamp assistance. If the American people would support thier veterans like they promise to do but fail in every aspect thousands of americans would not need them . Keep your word and try to understand the definiton of honor instead of molding the definition to fit your margin of profit then more americans MIGHT actually belive some of the BS that p[oliticians are spewing. Could it be Newt is jealous because no one really likes him amd he is mad about that truth .

[slatep]

Gingrich is as two faced as they come. The media would be doing the American people a HUGE service if they would just stop covering anything he says.!!

[hhandyman]

Knute has the right to speek we have the right NOT to listen to a person that is so bias Right that he cant make a left turn. With Murdocks almost strangle hold on the news media, Wall street J. USA Today, Fox News ect ect he can limit broadcasts or slant the news to look worse than it is or better than it is with the strike of his keyboard
Free speach is only free when it is avaialble to all lies and twisters of truth as well as the Honest people The world today is full of teachers with itching ears that is teachers that teach to the slant that the Popular view is most correct even if that popular view is inaccurate.
He has a right to his Opinion but his opinion does not make it fact. it is stricly HIS opinion since hes a leagal entity he tends to try to sway your opinion to his own.. slick salesman ideal.

[Wagner374500]

very informative. what do you guys think?
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