In his speech last week in Philadelphia, Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.) eloquently called for the nation not to be distracted by spectacle or nightly news fodder but to focus on the failure of too many of our schools, on jobs that are moving overseas, and on the increasing number of people losing their homes. He is right. Americans must demand real change from elected officials.

But how to judge the right change from the wrong change? With rising gas prices and health care costs, home foreclosures, the loss of manufacturing jobs, and troubled schools, what solutions will best equip Americans to pursue happiness and create prosperity? How do we ensure that this unalienable right is also available to the poor and powerless?

Answering Senator Obama’s challenge, AEI senior fellow and former Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich warns about the destructive cost of bad government--especially for the poor--which has left a trail of broken lives, such as we see today in Detroit. Gingrich takes up the challenge of describing the changes that will help all Americans create prosperity--not with the attitudes, policies, and institutions of the Left, which have been disastrous for so many--but with principles, policies, and institutions that actually work.