Yahoo! News exclusive: Newt Gingrich on the GOP's 'Pledge'

[ErnstBlofeld]

Yahoo News:



Newt Gingrich, the former Speaker of the House and a potential GOP presidential candidate in 2012, was the architect of the Republicans’ 1994 “Contract with America.” The ambitious contract, which called for reduced federal regulation, a balanced budget and term limits for House members, was released six weeks before the general election and was credited with helping Republicans gain control of the House for the first time in 40 years. With the release of a 21-page “Pledge to America,” modeled loosely on Gingrich’s original program, today’s Republican leaders hope to repeat the feat in the upcoming midterms. Gingrich spoke with Jane Sasseen, editor-in-chief of politics and opinion at Yahoo! News, by phone from Chicago.

Your reaction? What’s the most important message in the Pledge?

First of all, the focus is on jobs and the economy, on stopping tax increases and controlling spending. Second, I think their regulatory reform proposal to require any regulation above $100 million impact to come back to the Congress is a very large reform that will have a profound impact on how the Washington bureaucracy tries to run the country. So I thought that was a very big, breakthrough idea.