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Nov. 29, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:23
November 29, 2006, Wednesday, Hour #3
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Thank you, J.D., Johnny Donovan.
It's a pleasure and a privilege to be here with you this final hour, and then Rush is back, which is certainly good news.
We are going to be talking this hour with Newt Gingrich, catch up on a whole bunch of different issues.
And Arthur Brooks is going to be here too in just a moment, in fact.
I think he's standing.
Yes, he's standing by.
And I'll touch base with you on a couple of things.
The trip to China, and because China's all over the news, if you noticed every newspaper, there's just so many stories about China and for good reason.
Also, this whole idea, the alibi network, just incredible.
Another offshoot of problems with immigration that has to do with felons.
And the study, this comes by way of the Daily Mail.
Women talk three times as much as men.
I guess they needed a study for that.
And oh, our friend Ben Stein.
Well, I say friend.
Yeah, he's our friend.
We listened to him and we had him on the show once when we were sitting in.
Ben Stein has a new pamphlet-type book out called More of Ben, the collected wit and wisdom of Ben Stein, called from his monthly diary in the American Spectator.
And that's worth picking up, too.
So anyway, I was glad I got that mentioned and get some other things in here.
I am Paul W. Smith, fellow student of the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies, where there is never a final exam, but we are tested every day.
And coming to you today, as Johnny Donovan said, from the Midwest campus of the Limbaugh Institute in Detroit, Michigan, the motor city, home of Motown, growing life sciences corridor, and so many more good things that you really ought to get to know about.
And also the only place I'm aware of, at least right now, where you can get two or three seasons in one week.
About 66 degrees, maybe a record breaker.
Today, snow and 30s by Friday.
So we get all the seasons, and we try to get them all in a very short period of time.
Arthur Brooks is here.
He wrote a book called Who Really Cares? The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism.
Arthur, I'm Paul W. Smith.
Welcome in to the Rush Limbaugh Program.
Thanks for having me, Paul.
Great to be here.
Little did I know, I don't even think the one and only HR knew that, in fact, on this very same day that we have you on the program, you will be one of the featured interviews on John Stossel's 2020 report tonight on ABC at 10 o'clock called Cheap in America.
John Stossel reports on charity.
Who gives, who doesn't?
That's right.
We're doing a whole hour on myths and realities about charity in America.
What is the myth and the reality?
Other than the fact that we always, by our own press, the institutional media, are basically called cheapskates whenever something happens.
And we give away billions of dollars, billions and billions of dollars, matter of fact.
Yeah, that's correct.
I mean, one of the biggest myths that we have going around today is that the United States is somehow a venal, selfish nation.
When there's some sort of world tragedy or like the tsunami or even Katrina closer to home, people tell us that we're not doing enough at the national level.
And the reason that they say that is because we give less at the governmental level.
After the tsunami in South Asia, the United States government dedicated $350 million, and the government of Germany, for example, gave $800 million.
And that led people to say, well, see, the United States doesn't care about other people in the world.
What the press didn't generally notice very much was that Americans privately gave $2 billion away, which swamped the donations of any other country.
And people, people, heck, like my own cousin, Tom Smith, who went there and so many other Americans who donated their services to the various organizations around here that go and give actual help, not just money.
And when you consider the Index of Global Philanthropy, which keeps track of these things, says the U.S. government gave about $20 billion in foreign aid, for example, in 2004.
We as individual Americans gave an additional $24 billion.
Yes.
And if you take a look at immigrants in America, they send home about almost $50 billion to family members and hometowns.
We are anything but stingy, Arthur Brooks.
And I'm so glad that you're pointing it out in who really cares the surprising truth about compassionate conservatism.
And in fact, we find that conservatives who believe the government shouldn't be too much involved in this business actually do put their money where their hearts are and give more than liberals.
Why do you think this is?
Well, a couple of reasons for that.
Now, that really surprised me, incidentally.
When I came across that a couple of years ago, I said, oh, I kind of suspected the opposite because stereotypes tell us that there's one group in America that's particularly compassionate and the other that's selfish.
Just as Americans are supposed to be selfish, conservative Americans are supposed to be doubly selfish.
But when you look at the data, you find that the opposite is true as long as you're looking at private charitable contributions.
Conservative-headed households give on average about 30% more than liberal-headed households each year in charitable donated dollars.
And incidentally, conservative households earn on average 6% less than liberal households do.
So it's not just because they're richer that they're doing this.
Now, that goes totally against the ingrained stereotype, particularly the one that we heard in the 2004 presidential election.
I mean, it was, if you walked around Syracuse, New York, where I live, everybody had a sign in the yard that said, Bush must go, human need, not corporate greed.
As if everybody in America is voting for George W. Bush just wants to give a handout to corporations and wants to hurt the poor, or at least wants to neglect the poor.
And that simply doesn't bear out.
It's false when you look at the data.
Now, does it mean that conservatives and American conservatives give enough?
Well, no.
I think that we could probably all give more, particularly this time of year.
But it does suggest that what we often hear simply doesn't stand up.
Well, what does that mean?
No, we can give more.
And I'm concerned about that because, and I know you're a part of this, and I wish we could talk to John Stossel.
I did earlier on my Detroit show.
But the fact is, his report says, cheap in America.
John Stossel reports on charity, who gives, who doesn't, and why we all should be more generous.
And in part of what he says is it turns out that the working poor give away a higher percentage of their salary to charity than the rich.
And then he asks the question, so does that mean the richest Americans are cheap?
You can't believe or expect to say that the richest Americans are cheap with the hundreds of millions, no, the billions of dollars they give.
Yeah, no, that's correct.
I mean, disproportionately, the rich in America give away the approximately quarter trillion dollars that we give the charity each year.
And all you have to do is go to rushlimbaugh.com and see, I hope it's still up there, the scale in how much the rich pay in taxes, for example.
Oh, crazy.
It's always up there.
Kit Carson just said, booming in my headphones, it's always up there.
So it's still there, and you can take a look at it and see that even though people try to make us believe the rich are not paying their fair share in taxes, that's just not true.
And you're telling us, Arthur Brooks, in who really cares the surprising truth about compassionate conservatism, that the rich are also doing their part in terms of giving money.
But you believe we need to give more.
Well, I think that I don't necessarily think that we need to give more for moral reasons or to pay for more services, although that would be good.
The reason I think that we can all use more gifts or more charity is because it's good for our country.
One of the really interesting areas, emerging areas of research among economists and other people who study charity is that countries and individuals and communities that give more are more prosperous.
They have better public health.
They have greater life satisfaction.
And they, frankly, are richer.
So one of the things that we find is as nations reach into their wallets, particularly around the holidays, and they give more, communities, nations, individuals, they're all better off is one of the things that we find.
So it's actually, if I were to give a piece of advice to somebody on how to be more successful, one of the things that I would say is be more charitable.
And that incidentally is one of the reasons that Europe and many other developed nations have such low rates of economic growth compared to the United States, because they're so much stingier at the private charity level.
Well, and that'll be pointed out again tonight, too, in John's report.
He had mentioned it, and it came from Stephen Post, the author of a book coming out called Why Good Things Happen to Good People, the new science saying that giving more can actually improve your health.
Giving is as good for the giver as it is for the receiver.
That's science now that's saying so.
And anybody who's been involved, anybody who's helped out at a soup kitchen or given, like it's the Salvation Army, a bread and bed truck here in our area or the places where you go out and you help feed people, you know how that feels.
You know how good that work is and how great it feels for you, obviously for the people getting food who are hungry and need it as well.
And so it's all right there.
It's all right there.
Oh, yeah, it is.
It's a very exciting emerging area of science is the benefits of charitable giving to the givers.
But one of the striking things, one of the things that we need to be concerned about at this point is the big population of people who don't give in America today.
That's about 25% of the American population.
75 million Americans or so don't give anything to charity.
And one of the things I talk a lot about in my book is who these folks are and how we can reach them.
And these are not easy answers.
Can you tell me why giving America behaves so differently from non-giving America?
I'm assuming it's not just because, quote-unquote, the haves and the have-nots.
No, no, quite the contrary.
Because once again, as we talk about in the ABC special tonight, in fact, the working poor are unbelievably generous Americans compared with other people, including the non-working poor, even though they have the same income.
What really stands out, I mean, if I can ask you just two questions that will predict whether or not you're a giver of any substance today in America, the two questions I'm going to ask you are about your religious behavior and about your attitudes about government.
These are the two big things that we can use as diagnostic to figure out whether people are going to be charitable or not.
The difference between religious and non-religious people is unbelievably large.
One of the things that we find, even if we just look at non-religious giving, you find that religious people eat everybody else's lunch in America today.
But it isn't just religious people just giving to their churches either.
Oh, my goodness.
No, no, quite the contrary.
For example, let's just look at 9-11-related charities in 2001.
You find that people who attend their house of worship more or less every week, about a third of the population, were 10 percentage points more likely to make gifts to 9-11-related causes than people who don't have a religion or don't attend a house of worship.
And they were about 25% more likely in percentage points to volunteer for any causes, non-religious causes, that is, since the year 2000.
And the bottom line is this.
If it weren't for religious people in your community, your PTA would shut down.
And that has big consequences for communities.
Well, it's all fascinating.
It's all interesting.
I note that you are a professor at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Public Affairs.
I hope that doesn't mean that's why you were surprised that conservatives were so giving.
No.
All right, okay.
I just want to check it out.
We have to check on this program.
We do have to check when there's a university professor on board.
We have to be careful.
I understand.
No, I understand why you're ⁇ I'm sympathetic to your concerns.
But one of the things that one of the reasons I was surprised about this is this is just something I had always heard throughout my life.
And it's something that conservatives and liberals alike have a tendency to embrace.
I mean, there's kind of a manly self-reliance on the right that does its charity entirely in private.
And I respect that, and I admire that to a certain extent.
But we have to remember that the big givers in America are the people that are in the culture of giving.
Part of that is religion, and part of that is the very self-reliance and independence from government itself.
In fact, that's the second big characteristic of givers, is how they feel about how the government should be redistributing income among citizens to get greater or equality or to not worry about equality.
You find the people who are more reluctant for the government to tax and equalize incomes are far likelier to take matters of helping the needy into their own hands by giving charitably.
Professor Brooks, I thank you for putting this book together.
I hope folks will pick it up and read more about it.
Who really cares?
The surprising truth about compassionate conservatism.
And you can see Arthur Brooks tonight with John Stossel on Cheap in America on 2020 on ABC at 10 o'clock, as they say.
Check local listings.
Nice talking with you, Professor.
Thanks for your help.
Thanks.
Thanks for having me today.
It's our pleasure as our mailboxes fill with the appeals from fine organizations, worthy causes, competing for our holiday spirit and tax-deductible dollars.
Now you know why it feels especially good when you actually answer the call.
All right.
Take care of a few odds and ends.
Maybe get a couple of calls in, too, at 1-800-282-2882.
I know we'll get calls in in this next half hour when we welcome Newt Gingrich.
Here on the Rush Limbaugh program, I'm Paul W. Smith.
Newt Gingrich coming up here in this next half hour, Unfinished Business here on the Rush Limbaugh program.
Paul W. here, nice to be with you.
You can reach us at rushlimbaugh.com or 1-800-282-2882.
1-800-282-2882.
Let me get these unfinished things out of the way here.
I do want to mention this whole China thing because it's all over the news.
It's everywhere, and it is going to have a major effect on our world.
Of course, it is already having a major effect.
We're concerned about that here in Detroit, in Michigan, and all of these United States.
I had a quick trip to Beijing.
Of course, there's no such thing as a quick trip to anywhere in China from anywhere in the USA.
I left on Friday, arrived early Sunday, broadcast my Detroit radio show Monday and Tuesday, the occasion of the Beijing Auto Show, and then back home Wednesday.
Now, trust me, that's the fastest track you ever want to be on for a 14-hour-plus plane ride.
It was actually about 28 hours plus door to door with flight delays and such on the way there.
A 13-hour ahead time difference.
Now, I was proud I didn't end up face down in the mashed potatoes at our Thanksgiving dinner.
At least I don't think I did.
Now, the first thing you notice, and you can't help but notice, is the almost unbelievable fog, smog, haze.
Now, they're a bit sensitive at the highest levels of government as to what you actually call it, but let me make it easy for you to understand.
It is the worst pollution you could ever imagine breathing in day after day.
Coal-fired heating, coal-fired cooking, coal-fired factories, and they're building about another one a day.
It seemed worse than my last visit in 1997, and in fact, it is in that about 300 people a day are going to the hospital with respiratory problems.
Now, this is a problem that is finally not being ignored by the People's Republic of China's capital city, they're in Beijing, because they're getting ready to host the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
That's 080808, August 8th of 2008.
And during the 16-day games, no passenger cars will be allowed in the city, if you can imagine that.
And if the winds are blowing in the wrong direction, factories hundreds of miles away will be shut down.
This Olympics has been called the grandest event ever held in China.
Now, that's kind of hard to imagine what with building the Forbidden City with thousands and thousands and thousands of people, maybe millions of people that had to work to do that.
But it's big, that's for sure.
And to help alleviate the age-old air quality problems and the newer car-bike gridlock problems, Beijing is planning to build the world's biggest subway rail system and bus network.
Now, that's not good news for the rickshaw industry, but welcomed by the more than 15 million people who live there.
And the hundreds of thousands of people who are expected to be there for the Olympics, and they will experience one of the safest cities in the world, the very, very, very safe city.
Can you say collective surveillance?
It's going to be a green high-tech People's Olympics with the motto, One World, One Dream.
And we wish them well for that.
That should be an interesting experience if you're able to do that, the Olympics in Beijing.
Great paking duck at this one restaurant, Quinn Men Kuanjud Roast Duck Restaurant.
They actually have a sign that says over 115 million served.
And pictures on the wall showing that they've had pretty good clientele.
There's President George H.W. Bush and wife Barbara.
And there's Fidel Castro, not seated at the same table.
But they've got their problems with some people, maybe, if they're lucky, making $250 a year.
So they're living in abject poverty, suffering malnutrition, as you might guess.
And then unfortunately and predictably, that some people are doing better, and that's leading to worse food, more junk food and fat, with about 60 million of its citizens obese.
That's like the size of France.
And I'm not saying anything bad about France.
I'm just giving you an idea of the size.
All right, quick note here.
Women, if something one half of the population is long suspected, the other half always vocally denied, women really do talk more than men.
This is from the Daily Mail.
Women talk almost three times as much as men, the average woman chalking up 20,000 words in a day, 13,000 more than the average man.
Women speak more quickly, devote more brainpower to chit-chat, actually get a buzz out of hearing their own voices.
A book written by a female psychiatrist talks about these differences, how women devote more brain cells to talking than men.
And it triggers a flood of brain chemicals.
I can guarantee you, because Rush's staff is so good, this whole story from the Daily Mail will be on his website, rushlimbaugh.com.
And finally, this drives me crazy.
Mary is married.
Mary's having an affair.
The Chicago wife told her husband she was sightseeing in Los Angeles last August.
That was a lie.
She was having an affair.
She paid $350 to a company called the Alibi Network, an Illinois company that specializes in its namesake, alibis.
They armed Mary with a fake airplane itinerary, fake hotel reservations, fake hotel answering service.
When her husband phoned Mary's fake room in Los Angeles, the call was routed to her real cell phone in Las Vegas where she was having an affair.
And if you want to know one of the signs or signals of how far we've fallen as a society, that's it.
The owner saying, hey, don't blame the alibi network.
We didn't invent lying.
We didn't invent infidelity.
We just found a niche in an existing market.
We'll continue here on the Rush Limbaugh program.
I'm Paul W. Smith.
Thanks, Johnny Donovan.
I think H.R. Kit Carson has made it possible in advance of our conversation here with Newt Gingrich to take a couple of quick calls standing by that have been holding in Spokane.
Margie, your lucky opportunity here on the Rush Limbaugh program.
Other than the fact that Rush isn't here, but will be tomorrow.
I'm Paul W. Smith, and it's nice to be with you, Margie.
I think I'm there with you, Margie.
Yes, you are.
I'm putting my radio on mute.
All right, mute, yes.
But you're on the radio right now.
Okay.
So even if you put your radio on mute, that actually does not have an effect on your ability to speak.
And I want that to be clear so that you can go ahead and speak.
All right.
Thank you.
What I wanted to point it out as far as charitable giving is there's an incalculable amount of hidden giving that benefits society by parents helping their adult children through crises and helping to improve their families.
Such things as when there's a lost job or someone has a desperate need for a car, down payment on a house.
Are you feeling, Margie, are you feeling a little unappreciated in your own personal situation?
Absolutely not.
But I think when people are doing scientific studies that that would be well to take into consideration a lot of hidden giving.
No, I don't care if I'm appreciated or not.
That's not my point.
It's just that if you're doing a study on who's doing the giving, that strong families, which often tend to be conservative, are passing on money.
I mean, we're not wealthy by any means, but probably in the last year, we've helped our kids in various ways with about $20,000.
That's a lot of money.
That's a lot of charity.
You're absolutely right.
No one hadn't even thought about internal family charity.
You're right.
You're right.
And that benefits society immensely.
Well, it keeps money flowing in the economy, for one thing.
And another thing, it keeps families out of some crisis that might throw them onto the government pay government entitlements.
Well, Margie, I leave it to the Rush Limbaugh audience to come up with other angles that none of the experts had in our conversation earlier.
Thank you, Margie.
Keep an eye on Spokane for us in Atlanta.
It's Amber on the Rush Limbaugh program.
I'm Paul W. Smith.
1-800-282-2882, by the way.
1-800-282-2882.
I'm not sure how many calls we can get to.
We'll get to as many as we can.
Amber.
Hey, Mr. Smith.
How are you?
I'm great, Amber.
Ms. Amber?
Great.
Well, I just wanted to make the comment that it seems to me like the reason why the left is less giving than the right is it seems to me that more of the people that are on the political spectrum to the left are the ones with their hands out waiting for the handout, if you get my drift.
I do.
I'm not surprised that conservatives are very generous.
I would be a bit surprised if liberals were not also quite generous.
So I am surprised in the study, and it's worth picking up the book.
I'm going to pick up the book, Charity Gap.
I haven't seen it yet, frankly.
But I think it's very interesting what Arthur Brooks has put together.
And you make an interesting observation, that's for sure.
To our other callers standing by, I apologize.
We do want to move on.
We were connecting with our next guest.
And since the last time we were together, and frankly, since the last time I spoke with our guest, the Republicans outsourced their jobs to the Democrats.
Actually, they stopped doing their jobs and they outsourced them.
It was Newt Gingrich's contract with America spelling out those key issues, those promises to bring those issues to a vote in Congress back in 1994 that devolved into the Republicans' sounds of silence over the past few years.
Social Security, tax reform, immigration reform, song titles with no lyrics, dancing to their own music, right up to the moment their dance floor was rolled up right beneath their feet and taken away.
The long-forgotten contract with America is now the Democrats a new direction for America.
And I suspect, Newt Gingrich, that has caught your attention and bothered you as well.
Good morning or good afternoon and good evening to wherever you might be listening right now, whatever time it might be.
How are you?
I'm fine.
Mr. Speaker, it's always a pleasure and a privilege to have you on the radio and to be heard when there's so much to talk about and there is so much to talk about today.
And I'm real interested in some of your thoughts on the news of the day.
Well, look, I think that the Republicans failed to stick with the kind of reform orientation and solution orientation that was at the heart of the contract.
And as a result, the voters decided they wanted a change.
I think people looked at Washington and decided that wasn't what they were comfortable with.
And I think that they felt that at a performance level from Katrina to Baghdad, that there were a series of things that weren't going right.
And so they sent their legitimate signal that they wanted something better.
And I think Republicans had better take a deep breath and realize that this was a very important election and a very powerful signal was being sent of unhappiness on the part of the American people.
Much more so than just the sixth-year rule or even the term that you've used, Newt Gingrich, incumbentitis, and the problems that they faced.
There's much more at play here.
They really did outsource their jobs to the Democrats, and it's bothersome to many of us.
By the way, you get to see Newt Gingrich all kinds of places.
But in fact, aren't you officially now on the Fox Network as a consultant?
I am on Fox.
And in fact, we're just now taping a terrific special for the Christmas season on a book I just did called Rediscovering God in America, which carries you through the various monuments and memorials here in Washington and shows you the degree to which the founding fathers and our national leaders saw our rights and our strength coming from God.
So I have a great relationship with Fox and I enjoy very much the opportunity to share ideas there.
And you can go to newt.org and his Winning the Future program, if you will.
The speaker has lots there to offer for you at newt.org.
And as I say on Fox, but what you can't do usually is speak with the speaker, and you can right now at 1-800-282-2882.
That's 1-800-282-2882 to speak with Speaker, former Speaker, but Speaker always, until the next big job, Newt Gingrich.
With the president under fire as he is and going through what he has been going through, now the latest leaked memo regarding their lack of confidence in the Prime Minister of Iraq, and even that meeting has now been delayed a day.
Any reflections on that and this situation that we face as a country in Iraq and how a president, Newt Gingrich, might look at it and respond and react?
Well, I'm not going to talk about what I would do, but let me just say what I think the president should do.
I think that, first of all, we ought to recognize, we ought to be honest about the fact that this second campaign didn't work.
We had a first campaign, which was brilliant.
It took 23 days.
We defeated Saddam Hussein, drove him from power.
We then set out three years ago to create an Iraqi government.
But we did it, I think, in a very destructive way by having an American administrator.
We did not invest early on in training and developing the Iraqi military and an Iraqi national police, and frankly, allowed the situation to get out of control.
And I think it's going to take tremendous effort to defeat the bad guys.
I think it's very important that we defeat them.
And I think that we can defeat them.
But I think we've got to really take very serious steps to rethink what we've been doing and to approach it in a new spirit and with new drive and new energy in order to get it done.
I'm very, very concerned.
And I'm frankly as concerned that Washington will become sort of tired and pessimistic, and then people will start deluding themselves.
I'm very worried that we're going to I do a weekly newsletter, which you can sign up for at newt.org, which is a free newsletter called Winning the Future.
And I spent all of my newsletter on Monday outlining my concerns about the Baker-Hamilton Commission and a very real fear that they're going to say, oh, why don't we try to negotiate with Iran?
Why don't we try to negotiate with Syria?
And I think that would be very defeatist on our part and would almost certainly increase the risk to America.
Well, James Baker has been very upfront, has said it on my radio show in Detroit and elsewhere, that he does believe they should talk.
He does believe that that's something that needs to happen.
But there are a lot of people who are very concerned about the idea of going to the people who are behind this war and feeding it and then pretending that we want them to help us fix it.
It's like going to the terrorists in Iraq and saying, okay, we've got this problem.
Can you guys help us with those terrorists?
Look, if all they're going to do is produce a formula for surrender, that's not hard to think through.
I mean, just have a public relations disguise, pretend everything is okay, cut and run, leave the Iranians and the Syrians dominating the Middle East.
But the consequences of that, in terms of American national security, in terms of the aggressiveness of the terrorists, in terms of what's going to happen to the world's oil supply, the consequences of that, I think, are pretty frightening.
And I think people need to take very seriously that this is hard.
Let me give you just two quick examples.
Former Secretary Baker meets with the Syrian ambassador.
They talk publicly about negotiating with Syria.
And what happens?
The Syrians assassinate a Christian pro-democracy politician in Lebanon, the first time in a year they've killed somebody in Lebanon.
And I think it's a sign that the Syrians believe they're on offense and we're on defense.
And they are emboldened to do vicious things because they think that we're now too weak, too timid, too tired, and therefore can be ignored.
Second example, the State Department in April of 2006 issues its annual report on terrorism, and it says the leading supporter of state terrorism in the world is Iran.
The second leading supporter of state terrorism in the world is Syria.
So we're now going to negotiate with the two countries that we identify as the leading supporters of terrorism in the world.
I don't understand.
It doesn't make any sense to me.
Former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, with us here and talking with you too at 1-800-282-2882.
I'm Paul W. Smith, and this is the Rush Limbaugh program.
As we continue on this, your favorite radio station, keeping you on top of what's happening every hour of every day, including three hours a day of broadcast excellence with El Rushbo back in the chair tomorrow right here.
And we've got Newt Gingrich with us, the latest book, Rediscovering God in America.
You can also go to Newt.org and sign up for his free newsletter, Winning the Future.
And you can speak with him here right now at 1-800-282-2882.
And that's what Ed's doing in Beloit.
Ed, you're on the Rush Limbaugh program.
I'm Paul W. Smith, and here's Speaker Newt Gingrich.
Ed?
Thank you, Mr. Smith, and Mr. Speaker.
As Mr. Smith announced, I'm a Wisconsin resident, home of the Republican Party.
I'm a registered Republican.
But I have lost faith in the party, and I've lost faith in the president for the following reasons.
Number one, Mr. Bush is not a conservative.
Government has grown substantially under his administration.
If you look at the number of cabinet positions that have been added to the United States government since 1960, you can see that government is growing and continues to grow.
If you go to the GAO website, GAO.org, and look at the General Accounting Office's charts on mandatory versus discretionary spending, you will find that today, 60 cents out of every dollar of gross revenue for the United States government is mandatory spending.
That Congress today has control only over 40 cents out of every dollar, and that includes the cost for administration of the government.
Out of the 40 cents comes Katrina, the cost of the health education, welfare, the military, everything.
We have a situation here today where I can't identify a single member of the United States legislature that I would call a conservative.
All right, Ed, you've made your point well.
Let's let Newt Gingrich respond.
Well, let us start with, first of all, your point about mandatory spending, because the very word mandatory is a liberal fiction.
There is no mandatory spending except paying interest on the federal debt, which is required by the Constitution.
All other spending ultimately comes under the law.
And anytime Congress wants to change a mandatory spending program, if they can get the president's signature or if they can override it with a veto override, they can change that program.
When I was Speaker of the House, we reformed the welfare system.
Welfare was a mandatory program.
By the time we were done reforming the welfare system to require able-bodied Americans to go to work or go to school, 65% of the people in welfare had left the welfare system and either gone to work or gone to school.
Yet that was a mandatory program before we changed it.
We reformed Medicare, which is in danger of going bankrupt.
When we were done reforming Medicare, we had saved about $200 billion.
Those two mandatory changes, welfare and Medicare, were two of the keys to why we balanced the budget for four consecutive years under a bill that I authored as Speaker.
We paid off $405 billion in debt, and we moved the country in the direction that our caller wanted us to.
So let's start with the idea.
There is no mandatory spending beyond the control of Congress and the President if they have the will and the intelligence to find a way to cut it.
Steve is in Lakeport, Michigan on the Rush Shalimba program.
Go ahead, Steve.
Mr. Smith, Speaker Gingrich, how are you today?
Great.
Oh, good.
Speaker, I listened to Rush quite often.
A couple months ago was talking about a poll where they pulled the registered voters or the voters in the country without names and without party affiliations just based on qualifications.
And in that poll, you won, hands down, for president for 2008.
I'd like to know your take on that and what we need to do to get you on the ballot 2008, how we need to get those qualifications to the forefront.
And I wish we had more time, but you know what, Steve?
You've asked the multi-million dollar question, so we'll let you finish up with that, Mr. Speaker.
Well, let me just say that I'm very honored that people said that.
I am busy launching a project called American Solutions.
Anybody who wants to know more about it can go to newt.org, my first name, and sign up for emails, and we'll stay in touch with you.
I'll look at it next September in terms of running.
I've already promised Paul that I'll come on his show in Detroit.
Whatever I decide, I'll be on a show sometime in September next year.
But I think for right now, what I want to focus on is how do we solve the energy problem?
How do we solve education?
How do we solve health?
How do we get back to a balanced budget?
And if we can come up with good enough real solutions that make a lot of sense and people think they're the right thing to do, then we'll be in a different place and we'll have a different conversation.
People should know, and they will when they go to newt.org and they get the Winning the Future free newsletter and they check in on American Solutions that you've been working very hard on a lot of issues that affect each and every one of us.
Just our conversations in the past, Newt, on healthcare and computerizing records and all of that will not only save billions of dollars, but save lives is fabulous.
There's lots of information like that that you're working on and that people will want to get to know about by going online there.
And I do know that you will call us when you've made your decision.
You say sometime next September?
Right after Labor Day.
All right.
We'll look forward to it.
We wish you best of luck, and it's always nice to hear from you, to watch you on Fox News, to read you and your newsletters, and to keep an eye on what you're up to, Newt.
Thanks so much for being with us.
Great Christmas holiday, too, okay?
And a very happy and Merry Christmas to you as well.
Former speaker, Newt Gingrich, on the Rush Limbaugh program, I'm Paul W. Smith.
Thank you, HR.
Maimon, Ken Tucker here in Detroit.
You stay tuned for more of what matters to you most on this, your favorite radio station.
Don't forget, Rush is back tomorrow.
You go on out making a great rest of the day.
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