Newt Gingrich
Gingrich On Why Bailout Plan Is 'Just Wrong'
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, pictured here in January 2008,
calls the $700 billion bailout a "very, very bad idea."
* Gingrich's National Review article
All Things Considered, September 22, 2008 · One prominent
conservative urging Congress to step hard on the brakes in the $700
billion bailout plan is Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the
House of Representatives.
In Sunday's National Review online, Gingrich writes: "Congress was
designed by the Founding Fathers to move slowly, precisely to avoid
the sudden panic of a one-week solution that becomes a 20-year
mess."
In a conversation with NPR's Melissa Block, Gingrich says he thinks
the bailout plan is "just wrong," and that "it's likely to fail, and
it's likely to make the situation worse over time." A transcript of
their conversation follows.
This $700 billion bailout plan, this potential 20-year mess that
you're talking about, comes from a Republican administration, comes
from your own party. What's happened to Republican faith in small
government and free markets?
Well, I think you have a Goldman Sachs chief of staff to the
president and the Goldman Sachs secretary of the Treasury. And they
convinced the president that the American people ought to send $700
billion to Wall Street, which I think is a very, very bad idea, and
I would argue is a very un-Republican idea. I don't understand what
they think they're doing.
Do you feel betrayed by the Bush administration and by the
president?
Well, betrayed is too strong a word. I think what they're doing is
just wrong. And I think that it's likely to fail, and it's likely to
make the situation worse over time. And I think that [U.S. Treasury]
Secretary [Henry] Paulson has shown almost no understanding of how a
democracy operates. His initial draft would have given him $700
billion of your tax money with no oversight, no judicial review, no
accountability. I mean, we're not a dictatorship.
But the idea, obviously, is that this goes to Congress and that
provisions are written in — and that's just what they're doing now.
Are you not reassured by what the debate is in Congress right now?
Well, the last time we were promised they were going to save us, it
was $300 billion; it was a housing bill. Now we have brand-new
liberal Democrats, many of whom — for example [Connecticut Sen.]
Chris Dodd — was the largest single recipient of money from Fannie
Mae and Freddie Mac, and he is the chairman of the Banking
Committee. So the guy who got the most money is now going to write a
bill to give taxpayers' money to the people who gave him money.
Somehow, I am not reassured.
But Mr. Gingrich, a lot of the Republicans in Congress seem to be
saying this needs to go forward.
Well, I think they're just wrong. I think we need to slow down, take
a deep breath, hold public hearings, have experts testify,
understand exactly what the agreement would be, where the money
would go, how we would account for it. I don't think the taxpayers
should be socked for $700 billion for welfare for Wall Street. I
think it's fundamentally wrong, and I think that it is very likely
to create a bureaucratic control of our financial system in a way
that will cripple us for 20 years.
You know, when congressional leaders met on Thursday night with
Secretary Paulson and with the Fed chair, Ben Bernanke, the message
was dire. You heard Sen. Chris Dodd saying they were told we are
maybe days away from a complete meltdown of our financial system.
Don't you think that there's an imminent crisis here, that if they
were to wait, there could be really drastic results?
To be honest, I don't know. Secretary Paulson has been consistently
wrong for a year-and-a-half. He told us for a year-and-a-half this
wasn't a dire crisis; this wasn't going to happen. So the very
people who told us for a long time not to worry about it are — I
know they're panicked. Whether that means that we should be
panicked, I'm not sure. And I think the purpose of the Congress, the
purpose of the House and Senate, is to be a check and balance on the
executive branch, not to automatically write blank checks.
