Newt Gingrich on the Wall Street rescue: A 'very, very bad idea'

When he looks at the $700-billion Wall Street bailout, Newt Gingrich sees ... Goldman Sachs, inside the White House.

I think you have a Goldman Sachs chief of staff to the president and the Goldman Sachs secretary of the Treasury. And they convinced the president that the American people ought to send $700 billion to Wall Street.

That's Gingrich, the Republican and former House speaker, talking on National Public Radio this evening about White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten and Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr.

Bolten was executive director in charge of legal and government affairs for Goldman Sachs International in London before he began working for George W. Bush's election campaign in 1999, and Paulson was the firm's CEO before moving to Treasury.

It is all, Gingrich said, a "very, very bad idea," he said, and "very un-Republican."

Except that it is coming, of course, from a Republican administration.

It wouldn't fly, he wrote Sunday on the National Review's website, if the Democrats were in charge, and he urged Congress to "ask a lot of questions."

"If this were a Democratic administration the Republicans in the House and Senate would be demanding answers and would be organizing for a 'no' vote," he wrote.

If a Democratic administration were proposing this plan, Republicans would realize that having Connecticut Democratic senator Chris Dodd (the largest recipient of political funds from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) as chairman of the Banking Committee guarantees that the Obama-Reid-Pelosi-Paulson plan that will emerge will be much worse as legislation than it started out as the Paulson proposal.

But because Republicans are behind "this gigantic power shift to Washington and this avalanche of taxpayer money," Gingrich wrote, "the normal conservative voices have been silent or confused."

-- James Gerstenzang

Photo: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

Comments

[Angela Harris]

I never thought I would see the day that I agreed with anything Newt Gringrich said, but today I do. I agree the current bail out plan for wall stree is a very bad idea. I believe that before giving one penny congress should insist that the banks start immediately restructuring loans. By restructuring the loans the investments will be sound. Greed started this whole mess and not one penny of any bail out plan ishould go to executive compensation.

[Bob Simon]

Mr. Gingrich is scared of a "very very bad idea" from very very bad people.Allowing mendicants to resurrect "their economy of global top down pillage" will cripple our chances of consolidating our "real" knowledge and turning it into the means of our survival. We can no longer consume "toxic" consumables without consuming ourselves. Our target is sustainability and restructuring of all our institutions. Brazil has made some of those changes so can we by pulling the best we have together. I believe Obama understands that and so must we.

[Steve Hammons]

Food for thought in the articles:

Wall Street’s special offer – but you must act now!

AmericanChronicle.com
September 23, 2008

http://americanchronicle.com/articles/75216

Let's bail out the greedy, the crooks, the suckers

AmericanChronicle.com
September 22, 2008

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/75078

[Jon Cox]

This bail out is not needed the assets they have can be sold. The homes were not that over valued they will lose money to be sure but that is not our problem. If they go under that might be the best thing since they are to dim to make it and will lose there shirt some other way next year. To put it in terms Bush might understand you are in a hole stop digging.

[Nhu Sada]

I think we the people should let the fire burnt to the ground and start out FRESH. The fire is too huge to salvage. Where is the end. As the tax payer, I do not wish my tax dollar to pay out to the stupid mistakes those greedy politicians made and now make the citizens swallow the bitter pill. NO WAY!

[Russell Williams]

Newt is RIGHT ! ! ! No bailout.