If you believe the deep thinkers inside the Republican Party and in the public prints, America is about to experience an intellectual renaissance, an explosion of fresh ideas brought to you by Georgia Rep. Newt Gingrich and the new GOP-controlled Congress.
Pundits to the left and right of George Will have celebrated the cornucopia of ideas, notions, concepts and Great Thoughts packed inside Gingrich’s silver-thatched dome.
Credit Newt with a world-class selling job, as Ross Perot might say, but don’t believe it for a nanosecond.
Since Election Day, Gingrich and his lieutenants have mostly talked about reforming the inside of Congress (elevator operators beware, but let’s slow down on term limits, say the new proprietors) and whacking away at the 2 percent of the federal budget devoted to welfare.
The lingo has changed, but the trendy Gingrichian social policy all the rage among neo-conservative columnists was laid out 99 years ago by playwright Oscar Wilde in “The Importance of Being Earnest.”
“Really,” Wilde wrote, “if the lower orders don’t set us a good example, what on earth is the use of them?”
Gingrich and two kindred GOP spirits from Texas, Sen. Phil Gramm and Rep. Richard Armey, do the talking for the crowd that says poor and disadvantaged Americans are going to have to do a better job pulling the wagon.
Tenets of Gingrich’s “Contract with America” would deny welfare benefits to unwed mothers under age 18, with states having the option of banning benefits to mothers under 21.
The presumed savings would be directed to the orphanages Gingrich sees in our future. Here’s a new idea: Maybe they can build the orphanages next to all those new prisons.
Anyway, the GOP “Contract” also would deny increased benefits for additional children born while a mother is on welfare and restrict recipients to five years of cash benefits, or maybe less.
The economic and social impact of these proposals is barely being weighed, but it’s good Republican politics and it’s going to please those disaffected white male voters we’re hearing so much about these days.
Interestingly, the domestic agenda is being driven by a group of lawmakers commentator Mark Shields calls “the faculty club.”
Gingrich, Gramm and Armey, who will be the next House majority leader, are confident men in their middle years who’ve spent little time pulling the wagon in the private sector.
They are men who’ve spent their lives insulated on public payrolls, whether in Congress or some of the nation’s premier cow colleges, mostly practicing economics.
Gingrich, 51, was schooled at Atlanta’s Emory University, moving on to a master’s program and a doctorate at Tulane. From there, he taught at West Georgia College between 1970 and 1978. Then, on to Congress.
In fact, Gingrich still masquerades as a part-time history professor by satellite at a side-of-the-road college in Georgia.
After getting to Congress, Gingrich enjoyed a public life crowded with incident.
In his role as No. 2 man in the GOP leadership, he helped engineer a congressional pay raise. Then, in the interests of re-election, he negotiated a mutual cease-fire on the issue with the dreaded Democrat Tom Foley, soon to be the ex-speaker of the House.
More Top Picks Best Electric Pressure Washers Under 300
Gingrich bounced a few checks (22) in the House bank, all but leads the league in the free-mail congressional derby, and is a master at handling political action committee dollars.
Sen. Gramm, Gingrich’s staunch ideological ally across Capitol Hill, was born in 1942, like Newt the son of a noncommissioned Army officer.
Gramm earned his Ph.D. at the University of Georgia in 1967, then went off to teach economics at Texas A&M University, where he lingered for a decade before being elected to the House in 1978-as a Democrat, by the way.
Gingrich’s designated hitter, Armey, was 27 when he began teaching economics at West Texas State University, after finishing his master’s and doctoral programs.
He moved on to Austin College and then to North Texas State University before getting himself elected to the House in 1984.
Read my lips: Never had a real job.
By the way, if it occurred to you that Armey, Gingrich and Gramm could have been in the military about the time they were lecturing college students, well, they share this approach to the Vietnam War: It was a fine idea, and a worthwhile life experience for others.
That’s the idea factory, folks. Enjoy.