Newt Gingrich is back to haunt us again, this time offering up nine panderific ideas that reek of the desperation of a party with no ideas–and he’s supposed to be one of the idea men of this gang!  My favourite has to be this one:

Introduce a “more energy at lower cost with less environmental damage and greater national security bill” as a replacement for the Warner-Lieberman “tax and trade” bill…

This will also be known as the No Trade-Offs/Free Lunch Act of 2008.  Gingrich forgot to mention introducing the bill to protect endangered unicorns.  Gingrich supplements this with such proposals as, I kid you not, an earmark moratorium (take on those tough issues, Newt!), a gas tax holiday that will allegedly be paid for by “cutting domestic discretionary spending,” using the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to manipulate oil prices (very slightly), tackling all of the outrageous waste at the Census Bureau (?), and, naturally, banging the drum about the judiciary.  The one idea that sounds mildly interesting is an overhaul of air traffic control systems, and it is the most technocratic of the nine, which means that it will take the longest to put into practice and will have limited impact on public opinion.  This list is nothing more than tinkering around the edges and is so far removed from an agenda of “real change” (whatever that’s supposed to mean) that it’s laughable.  I can just see the average voter now as he hears about these proposals, “Sure, the GOP exploded the deficit, created a huge new entitlement and backs a war two-thirds of us want to end, but they are on top of that Census Bureau problem, so all is forgiven.”  If this is the best they can come up with, they may be in bigger trouble than I thought.

Filed under: politics