Newt won election by creating a reasonable seeming list of propositions and gathering together a group of Congressmen to run on them as a plank. He called it is "Contract for America." We've called it his "Contract on America." The plank was a mix of good ideas and really conveniently bad ideas.
* FIRST, require all laws that apply to the rest of the country also apply equally to the Congress;
This actually makes sense.
* SECOND, select a major, independent auditing firm to conduct a comprehensive audit of Congress for waste, fraud or abuse;
This was political posturing, an issue they used as a means to attack and defeat Democrats; and an issue they stole from "good government progressives" and perverted. Newt and company were after power, once they were in office they used this issue to bring down Speaker Wright and do a witch hunt on Democrats. Eventually Newt was charged with waste, fraud and abuse himself anyway for the way he used his GOPAC funds as a personal campaign war-chest. After Gingrich's fall the Republicans did their best to shut down the committees with the role and power to actually investigate waste, fraud and abuse allegations.
Upshot:
The country doesn't always need more laws, it needs to evenly, fairly and efficiently enforce the ones it has; and to ensure that the laws it creates don't make problems worse than they were before the law was created. Newt ran on a holier than thou attitude, but has consistently proved since his election that he was/is no paragon of virtue.
Attacking Congress for waste, fraud and abuse while representing the corporations whose bribes, lobbying, and blackmail pressure Congress to pass laws that suit their needs not only was not the way to achieve the stated goal, but made the stated goal both hollow and corrupt.
* THIRD, cut the number of House committees, and cut committee staff by one-third;
This sounded good, but the way it was implemented turned the House into a tightly ruled organization where debates are often limited, the Speaker can ram-rod legislation, and minority members feel frustrated. This is still true with the Dems back in the majority.
Worse, reducing committees and staffing just moves the location of expertise to the Executive and to the numerous lobbyist groups. Congress depends on staffers to investigate issues, draw up rational and just legistlation, and do the right thing. When those staffers are not available, lobbyists or Government end up writing legislation.
* FOURTH, limit the terms of all committee chairs;
This got rid of seniority rules, but really didn't improve the House so much as reinforce the power of informal power and heirarchy. It also, again, reduces the level of independence and independent expertise in those committee chairs, again shifting power to lobbyists.
* FIFTH, ban the casting of proxy votes in committee;
This makes no sense to anyone who actually understands how incredibly demanding house and senate sessions can be. It does nothing for improving debate, or enabling Congressmen to actually understand or debate on the bills they are contemplating. It just helps staffers and lobbyists dominate the process.
* SIXTH, require committee meetings to be open to the public;
This was a good idea, except that in practice it never has been consistently practiced, as shown by the flap over whether or not the Intelligence committee was ever briefed about torture.
* SEVENTH, require a three-fifths majority vote to pass a tax increase;
This is one of those convenient for the wealthy, very bad ideas, that everywhere it has been practiced has hobbled government when it most needed revenue to operate and perform its mission. No problem for the wealthy, connected and well heeled, but a decided problem for those who work for a living and depend on services such as health care, edible and safe food and medications, functional transportation, and other things usually provided by Government in a functional (non third world) Government.
My observation is that Somalia or the average third world basket-case is the libertarian dream. I even read a half serious article making that case. I used to write an essay every year about "Scrooge" but my libertarian friends used to flame me so bad about it that for a while I've been cowed. Look for it again soon.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QDv4sYwjO0&feature=player_embedded
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/06/somalia-libertarian-parad_n_197763.html
http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/7787.aspx
* EIGHTH, guarantee an honest accounting of our Federal Budget by implementing zero base-line budgeting.
This sounds like a good idea, in the "good years." The smart thing to do is to use the money produced by Government to invest in things that can fill up a treasury and be relied on during the "bad times" to keep ordinary people from starving to death.
On the other hand, an honest accounting of the Federal Government would allow us to declare assets, borrow against those assets, depreciate costly investments over their life-time, and do other accounting things that would demonstrate that a lot of what looks like stupid budget decisions are actually very wise, and that a lot of what looks penny wise is pound foolish.
Gingrich was exploiting the general ignorance and credulity of the voting public to offer up poisonous ideas by mixing them with artificial sugar.
Again, if one is a beneficiary of corporate welfare, or in other ways well heeled, wealthy, connected or otherwise privileged Contract on America was probably a good deal for you; but for ordinary folks this was a set of very bad ideas guaranteed to set up the power of lobbyists, Corporations and Republicans for as long as they could get away with it. Gingrich and company had no real imagination for genuine reform that would have made Government actually work for the benefit of common folks, but this stuff worked very well for them and their patrons.
Further reading:
Expresses my opinion:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2009/05/gingrichs_deranged_ethics_advi.html (see below PS quote)
Expresses his loyal avatars:
http://rightgrrl.com/carolyn/newt.html
Newt happily plays the money game now and lobbies for special interests. Anyone who claims that the GOPAC affair was an anomaly is whistling dixie, which is something he does whenever he can.
Chris
PS:
Let’s review. Gingrich was reprimanded by the House and had to pay a $300,000 penalty for improperly using tax-deductible money for partisan political gain and for submitting false information to the ethics subcommittee investigating his conduct. An investigation by the House Ethics Committee concluded that Gingrich’s conduct represented "intentional or…reckless" disregard of House rules and that there was “reason to believe” that Gingrich knew he was providing false information.
"The violation does not represent only a single instance of reckless conduct," a report by an investigative subcommittee concluded. "Rather, over a number of years and in a number of situations, Mr. Gingrich showed a disregard and lack of respect for the standards of conduct that applied to his activities."
To be clear, the ethics case against Gingrich was no partisan witch hunt. The investigative subcommittee that determined he had violated ethics rules was headed by Florida Republican Porter Goss. The vote to reprimand him and impose the penalty was 395 to 28.
And Gingrich himself admitted to the violations with which he was charged. “In my name and over my signature, inaccurate, incomplete and unreliable statements were given to the committee, but I did not intend to mislead the committee,” Ginrgrich acknowledged. “I did not seek personal gain, but my actions did not reflect creditably on the House of Representatives.”
All this, by the way, was before the married speaker was having an affair with a congressional aide during the Clinton impeachment proceedings.
Somehow I don’t think he’s in any position to be dispensing ethics advice.
The issue wasn't whether it was illegal in the eyes of the IRS. Congress wrote those laws. The issue was whether it was corrupt, something that goes beyond whether or not something is illegal or not. If the IRS clears him of IRS impropriety that has nothing to do with the impropriety of his general behavior, which is ongoing.
This is the typical insider who makes a career by playing the outsider:
http://www.opensecrets.org/revolving/rev_summary.php?id=8534