« Previous | Main | Next »

Gingrich: McCain Must Oppose Bailout

Share

September 23, 2008 5:11 PM

ABC News' Teddy Davis Reports: Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Tuesday that President Bush's proposed bailout plan is a "dead loser on Election Day" and urged Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., to come out against it, saying that the GOP nominee cannot be for it and maintain his claim to be a reformer.

"I don't know how he can vote for this and with a straight face go around and say that he's for real change and he's the reform candidate," Gingrich told ABC News.

Gingrich's comments were the latest sign that the presidential campaign could be upended by the Bush administration's $700 billion plan to buy up and hopefully resell troubled mortgage-backed securities.

If McCain were to come out against the bailout plan, Gingrich said that Republicans would rally to his side and it would become possible for the McCain-Palin ticket to style itself as "taking on the Bush-Obama establishment."

"Either McCain is going to go along" with Obama in supporting the plan, said Gingrich, "in which case the establishment will have the fix in . . . or you are going to see McCain decide, much in the way that he did in picking Palin, that, in fact, he is a genuine maverick, that he genuinely defends the taxpayers, and that this is a terrible bill."

"If the latter happens," Gingrich continued, "I think you will see the emergence overnight of a 'McCain Reform Wing of the Republican Party' and you'll see House and Senate members siding with McCain by overwhelming margins and then you'll be in a very different political environment. You'll have 'Bush-Obama ads' on the one side and 'taking on the Bush-Obama establishment' on the other side, and that will be, frankly, one of the more amazing elections."

Left unsaid by the former Speaker is the possibility that the bailout plan would simply die if McCain were to come out against it, which in turn, could deprive the McCain-Palin ticket of the opportunity to run against the "Bush-Obama establishment."

"If McCain doesn't come out for this, it's over," a top House Republican told ABC News' George Stephanopoulos on Tuesday.

Gingrich is against the bailout plan because he thinks it is "inconceivable" that the Treasury and Fed can manage Wall Street.

While coming out against the bailout plan, Gingrich forcefully rejected the contention that he favors doing nothing and laid out a conservative alternative.

Gingrich's four-point plan includes: (1) suspending immediately mark to market provisions (the accounting practice of valuing a financial position in an investment at its current market price) in the hopes of stopping the downward spiral in asset values and eventually replacing it with a three year rolling average; (2) repealing immediately Sarbanes-Oxley, the 2002 accounting law Gingrich described as "an enormous drag on small business"; (3) setting the capital gains tax rate at zero "matching the Chinese and Singapore" (to encourage private capital to flood into the market picking up properties without the taxpayers being at risk); and (4) passing an "extraordinarily powerful" energy bill ("to return $500 billion a year to the American economy that are currently going overseas").

Gingrich spoke with ABC News in Washington, D.C., after participating in a polling presentation sponsored by American Solutions, the group he established last year which works to identify issues that have a majority support among Republicans, Democrats, and independents.

September 23, 2008 in Vote 2008: Republicans | Permalink | User Comments (88)

User Comments

Feed You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.

It's like giving welfare to the same people. Let those who listened to their house real-estate agents and who were smart enough to not buy a too expensive house have the honor to pay for their own houses with their own green-backs. ... and those who have a house with extra rooms they don't even use sign up for this welfare type supplement.

To all evil people especially from Iraq, I am sure you are going to enjoy the devils horns wherever they fit in eternal hell. Respect my Americans!

Posted by: Amado Cataneda | Sep 23, 2008 6:32:10 PM

I hope you have a personal phone line to Senator McCain with this advice. I have emailed and phoned my state Senator; promising to vote for his opponent if he backs this bill; and though I could never in good concience vote for Obama, I may consider sitting out this election.

Posted by: Cheryl Palmer | Sep 23, 2008 6:36:50 PM

As soon as John McCain figures out which stance will win him the most votes, you can count on him promoting that stance and calling everyone else names.

In the meantime, he will be for and against everything, all at once, or perhaps nothing at all; it's impossible to say, because he doesn't know himself.

But eventually John will settle on something. Or pretend to, anyway. The same way he pretends to be a reformer when he's spent his entire career supporting the status quo that has served him so well.

Seems to me that this self-proclaimed "Maverick" is really a "Pinto" with an exploding gas tank.

Posted by: Dennis Berry | Sep 23, 2008 6:40:39 PM

It is interesting that the cast of characters who brought the housing market to this pass ... the Dodds, Pelosis, Kerrys, and -- yes, 0bama (who got more than $100,000 from Fannie Mae) are now on the side of the "little guy." What a joke those Democrats are!

Posted by: beebop | Sep 23, 2008 6:43:53 PM

McCain is trying to deflect attention form his years of deregulation with rants of righteous indignation at the failure of Wall Street. McCAin is the more naive of the candidates. ............
http://thefiresidepost.com/2008/09/23/anarchy-the-slippery-slope-of-deregulation/

Posted by: Ohg Rea Tone | Sep 23, 2008 6:51:23 PM

Newt...BRILLIANT!

Now we have to convince McCain/Palin to come out against the bail-out.
http://www.johnmccain.com/Contact/

Main street has already made adjustments and there is a calculation that we have one more year of higher than normal foreclosures... helping those who are holding rentals.

Remember, "THIS IS ALL ABOUT THE TAXPAYER", stupid. The chant of the day... REALLY?

We will still be able to help those who REALLY need help... when we crash.... American CITIZENS... not the foreign market or banks or other financial/insurance institutions.

I think we have faith that Wall St will bounce back - cleaner. Yes, it will be felt worldwide... but who could take our place?

I feel this is a rush job... most are nervous because congress MUST take their vacation... we already know they do not care about us (NO DRILL).

Copy these remarks and send them to your politicians... and of course, let OUR MAVERICKS know how we feel.

Let the Democrats decide to create this mess (but the word on the street they will not carry the ball if McCain opposes it).

You have to give Bush and McCain credit.. when the American people opposed illegal immigrant SANCTUARY, they listened to the WILL of the people.

I believe we still have to power to change this, IF we ACT.

This whole thing is political... the only other option is to commit to $700B, now, and create stipulations later.

Posted by: Mel | Sep 23, 2008 6:56:58 PM

Ummmm...McCain came out FOR the bail-out.

What sickens me is that I actually think Gingrinch has a good plan. The world has gone all topsy-turvey.

Posted by: the other jd | Sep 23, 2008 7:15:22 PM

OH, and Mel--This bail-out WAS George Bush's idea. It wasn't the Dems. GW is pushing to have it passed.

Posted by: the other jd | Sep 23, 2008 7:17:16 PM

Every time Gingrich says "frankly" he's lying.

Posted by: xian | Sep 23, 2008 7:21:45 PM

Posted by: Judge | Sep 23, 2008 7:22:25 PM

"Bush-Obama"

LMAO it doesn't get any funnier than that.

Posted by: Los | Sep 23, 2008 7:27:50 PM

the other jd

Hey, put your strategic hat on... we're on the same side. I think pressure could turn it around... If WE don't do it, nobody will.

blog blog blog does not good, unless somebody in power reads it.

Posted by: Mel | Sep 23, 2008 7:53:27 PM

GO NEWT!!

I wrote McCain asking him to NOT support this bailout!! Everybody here should do the same. Let Wall Street feel what Main Street has been feeling for a long time now. No prob, no skin off of Main Stree.

http://www.johnmccain.com/Contact/

Posted by: Bingo | Sep 23, 2008 8:01:06 PM

McCain and Obama and Bush need to come out together for this bill to take the politics out of it;they need to focus on what is best for the country.

Posted by: response08 | Sep 23, 2008 8:40:17 PM

Gingrich: McCain Must Oppose Bailout

To protect OIL TYCOONS interest, in BUTING YOU HOUSE AND BUSINESSES.

Our money is, in HIS OIL LOBBIEST who control the VALUE of our dollar. Now they want to put a CHEAPER VALUE, on AMERICAN LIVES.

That's DICTATORSHIP under CAPITALISM.
Do not let the OIL TYCOON tell you how much your life is worth.

VOTE 'NO' TO MC DICTATOR


Posted by: historyforgotten | Sep 23, 2008 8:52:13 PM

I hope McCain votes for the bailout and wins in November because next year is the 80th anniversary of the Great Depression. Sarah can jump out of the cake and wish him Happy Anniversary!

Posted by: hamishdad | Sep 23, 2008 9:12:23 PM

Newt, John McCain should also support a doubling of the IRA contribution limits for at least 2008 and 2009. This would add more liquidity to the financial markets, would allow taxpayers to bolster their retirement savings, and participate in the recover of the stock market.

Posted by: Sean Owens | Sep 23, 2008 10:02:51 PM

Newt's plan makes more sense than anything I've heard yet. There is information on this that is above our pay grade, however. There must be a short term plan to un-freeze credit markets. There must be a long term plan to better diversify our economic system. The plan being offered us by the Neo-Establishment appears to be the replacement of a corrupt oligopoly by an easily corruptible monopoly. Capital managed by the government is Socialism.

Posted by: Randy | Sep 23, 2008 11:39:04 PM

Gingrich's alternatives won't work.

Even if the capital gains tax rate were zero, capital would NOT flood into the financial sector. Wall Street has been spooked by the collapse of all these financial deals based on complex derivatives and unrealistic housing prices. Nobody wants to invest in such toxic assets now because nobody can assess their fair market value and risk. Anyone with spare cash to invest from a capital-gains tax cut will invest it in less risky investments elsewhere.

With a big capital gains tax cut, you would see folks investing in all kinds of new things--but not in the financial sector which is stuck in neutral right now.

The Federal Government must jump-start the financial sector by force. They're the only ones who can afford to take the risk, because they can always stick the taxpayers with whatever the bill comes to and order the IRS to collect the money.

Posted by: sinz52 | Sep 23, 2008 11:42:55 PM

How many of you "let wall street feel what main street feels" know that it's the same thing? Who do you think invested in or loaned money to your employer? Who do you think offers loans to send your kids to school? Who do you think put up the investment and the insurance for your town/city to invest in infrastructure? If Wall Street tanks, Main Street tanks - as businesses shut down, as infrastructure crumbles, as the high cost of education gets further out of reach.

Posted by: NB | Sep 23, 2008 11:57:45 PM

Post a comment