America Needs Bold Solutions to Replace Failed Policies, Gingrich Says

WASHINGTON, MARCH 31, 2008 -- Senator Barack Obama delivered a speech on March 18 in Philadelphia that called on all Americans to come together to address race and poverty in America. Accepting Senator Obama's challenge, AEI senior fellow and former Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich responded with a call for real change with bold solutions.

In his March 27 speech at AEI, Gingrich warned about the destructive cost of bad government and bad culture, especially for the poor. Patterns of bad government and bad culture have left a trail of broken lives, visible today in cities like Detroit and Philadelphia. In the face of failure and with evidence of decline, Gingrich proposed a series of sweeping changes designed to help all Americans create prosperity with principles, policies, and institutions that actually work.

• Focusing on unproductive anger blinds America from the real source of frustration. Gingrich pointed out that the "tragic truth is that the current system is not working because of two topics we don't like to talk about: bad culture and bad government. And bad culture and bad government intersect to reinforce each other, to create human and financial costs beyond anything we could have imagined a quarter century ago. The tragic truth is that at the end of segregation, the great moment of opportunity for African-Americans, we had a failure of government and a failure of culture."
• American education fails because our priorities are misplaced. Gingrich noted the tragic failure of our nation's inner-city schools in observing that the "primary metric of the Detroit school bureaucracy has nothing to do with the children. It has to do with whether or not the paychecks are issued every month. And it has been a stunningly effective bureaucracy at issuing paychecks. It just doesn't do anything for the paychecks." As evidence, the Gates Foundation estimates that a freshman entering the Detroit school system has one chance in four of graduating on time. "Three out of four children in Detroit are being cheated by one of the most expensive school bureaucracies in America."
• America tolerates too much crime while refusing to push for effective rehabilitation. Gingrich stated that "the amount of unnecessary crime that we tolerate in America is breathtaking. And if every American city was as safe as New York, the number of people who would be alive next year . . . will be stunning." Gingrich pointed out that prisons fail to prevent future crime and rehabilitate criminals. "We have to fundamentally rethink prisons in America. It is totally unacceptable to put 3 million people in prison. And it is totally unacceptable to have [our] current prisons. You should not be in physical danger when you are a ward of the state. . . . We give up the prisons to the prisoners."

Gingrich then offered seven bold solutions as the start of change.

1. Stop crime and ensuring public safety
2. Replace the destructive culture of adolescence with a return to young adulthood 
3. Create a new dynamic of jobs, health, and wealth creation for all Americans 
4. Use modern technology and modern science to turn disabilities into capabilities 
5. Replace cities of poverty with cities of prosperity
6. Ensure true happiness and true citizenship with a real right to pursue happiness for all Native Americans
7. Create a twenty-first century system of law enforcement and appropriate punishment, with a decisively new model of prisons

As Americans prepare to go to the polls in November, Gingrich called for a national discussion about the most important issues facing us, emphasizing that his speech "is not an answer to Senator Obama. . . . [I]t is the beginning of a genuine dialogue in which people of all backgrounds can come together to have a serious conversation about America's future."

--STEVEN EVERLEY

For a video, podcast, and transcript of Gingrich's remarks, visit www.aei.org/event1701/. To read more about Gingrich's proposals, check out his newest book, Real Change: From the World That Fails to the World That Works. Gingrich's remarks at a book forum for Real Change are available at www.aei.org/event1658/.

For more information about Gingrich's research activities and speeches, contact Emily Renwick at emily.renwick@aei.org or 202.822.6025.

For media inquiries, contact Véronique Rodman at vrodman@aei.org or 202.862.4870.

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