Newt Gingrich: Campaign Issues

Where he stands

Newt Gingrich Source: Gage Skidmore Related Links Barack Obama: Campaign Issues Campaign 2012 Closest Presidential Races Presidential Gallery Newt Gingrich's campaign website

Healthcare

• Gingrich believes that by privatizing the market, including Medicare, competition will lower prices. His plan would allow Americans to choose either a tax credit or deduction to buy private insurance.
• He opposes Obama's health care reform and wants to overturn it, saying it creates new taxes, regulations, and bureaucracies.
• Wants each state to establish a high risk pool to cover the uninsured.
• Allow all citizens, including those on Medicare and Medicaid, to set up health savings accounts.
• Would reform Medicaid by giving states the flexibility to customize their programs with a block-grant program.
• Gingrich wants the focus of healthcare to be prevention.
• Proposes moving from a paper system to an electronic one to eliminate fraud.

Budget/Deficit/Taxes

• Gingrich supports eliminating the minimum wage.
• He opposes the estate tax.
• Favors an optional 15% flat tax.
• He would insist on a balanced budget amendment and line item veto.
• Gingrich supports tax cuts for those with an annual income of less than $200,000, as well as for those over age 65.
• Renew the tax cuts signed into law by President George W. Bush.
• Lure businesses and investment to the U.S. by eliminating the capital gains tax, reducing the corporate income tax to 12.5%, and allowing businesses to expense 100% of new equipment.
• Said regulation is impeding job creation and he would repeal the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the Community Reinvestment Act, and the Dodd-Frank Law; break up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; replace the Environmental Protection Agency with an Environmental Solutions Agency; and modernize the Food and Drug Administration.

Immigration

• Gingrich supports the deportation of immigrants with no family ties in the U.S.
• Believes children of illegal immigrants who were born in the U.S. have the right to remain in the country.
• Says the border needs to be secure.
• Would revamp the visa program.

Energy/Environment

• Thinks the U.S. needs a national energy plan to reduce the reliance on oil from the Middle East.
• Supports drilling for oil and natural gas in the U.S. and offshore. He has also called for ending the ban on oil shale development in the West.
• Would replace the EPA with the new Environmental Solutions Agency.
• Believes the Kyoto Treaty is bad for the environment and bad for America and has said the cap-and-trade system is ineffective in curbing global warming.
• Favors building new nuclear power plants.
• Supports the development of a hydrogen car and research into cleaner energy.

Foreign Policy

• Believes the U.S. has inadequately dealt with North Korea and Iran.
• Feels that the U.S. needs a definitive strategy in confronting radical Islamists.
• Has said that America's foreign policy must be to ensure our own survival and protect countries with similar values.

Same-sex marriage

• Gingrich strongly opposes same-sex marriage and civil unions. He has called homosexuality a sin.
• He's opposed to same-sex couples adopting.
• Favors amending the constitution to protect the "traditional family."