Newt discusses Health Care with Hannity

Fox News
July 24, 2009

HANNITY: All right. For years we have heard President Obama vowing that health-care reform would be passed before the August recess. But now Senator Harry Reid has informed the president that the Senate will not meet that deadline. So at an event in Cleveland, Ohio, yesterday President Obama was forced to inform the crowd that yet another one of his promises would, in fact, be broken.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: We just heard today that we may not be able to get the Bill out of the Senate by the end of August or the beginning of August. That's OK. I just want people to keep on working.
(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Well, they're not going to be working. They're going to be on recess. And despite the fact that his own party controls both houses of Congress and the White House, President Obama is blaming Republicans for his failed plan.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: Another Republican senator said that defeating health-care reform is about breaking me. The Republican -- the Republican Party chair seeking to stall our efforts recently went so far as to say that health insurance reform was happening too soon.
(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: All right. Here to respond is former speaker of the House, FOX News contributor and the author of "Real Change," available in paperback, which has been updated to include the Obama presidency. Newt Gingrich is with us. Mr. Speaker, good to see you.

NEWT GINGRICH,AUTHOR, "REAL CHANGE": It's good to be with you.

HANNITY: All right. There's no specifics, no plan, no real way how to pay for it. President even admitted before the press conference a day before, he hadn't read the Bill. And, yet, he goes out before the American people. How do you assess how this has been handled from the beginning?

GINGRICH: Well, I think it's a very disappointing part of how he is really throwing away the opportunity he had. He was elected on the idea of change you can believe in. He was elected on being beyond partisan politics. He was elected on trying to bring people together. And then you end up on this kind of petty partisan blaming when, in fact, what's happened is pretty clear. In the House, they tried to write a very liberal Bill. Speaker Pelosi was determined to get as close to national government-run health care as she could. The result is that the blue dog Democrats have rebelled. In the Senate now the nine freshman senators, the Democrat freshman have all rebelled. You now find out that the Senate is not going to move on some kind of forced march. And the next question will be whether or not the House Democrats can be bullied by Speaker Pelosi into a vote they don't want to take at a time when the Senate clearly is going to go home and not do anything about it.

HANNITY: Well...

GINGRICH: I don't think the president.

HANNITY: Go ahead.

GINGRICH: Let me just say, I think the president has an enormous opportunity. I concede here that you pegged this right and I was wrong last year, that his radicalism blocks him from using what he said he'd like to do. He has an enormous opportunity to take a deep step back, call on John Boehner, the Republican leader in the House, Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, ask them to join in a bipartisan drafting program over the August break and see if we could come up with a health Bill that did not ration care, did not raise taxes, and did not create big government. Now he won't do that, but that's sad. Because I think he could, in fact, involve the Republicans in a bipartisan effort that might actually succeed.

HANNITY: You see, I agree with you he won't do it, because -- I don't want to say that I was right, but his radicalism seems to...

GINGRICH: Oh, sure you do. It's all right. Say it.

HANNITY: Well, you said it for me, so I'll -- but I think he's even more radical than I thought. How's that? So I didn't quite understand quite the degree to which, although I think I was pretty close. But he sounds rather incoherent. It seems that the only thing he knows is he wants this done and he wants it done. But what is it that he wants done? He wants -- is it that he wants the government running health care? Is that what he's looking for?

GINGRICH: Well, you know, you know, Callista and I did a movie on Ronald Reagan called "Rendezvous with Destiny." When we did it -- and I have now seen it eight or nine times in various showings and premiers. And as I watched it I realized that a fascinating difference: Ronald Reagan used rhetoric to explain and clarify reality. President Obama uses rhetoric to hide from reality. He's very eloquent, but when you slow down and you look at his eloquence, it doesn't hold together. And the reason is, he can't share candidly with the American people what he's trying to do, because his advisors tell him that, in almost every issue now, the American people are opposed to what he's trying to do.

HANNITY: Yes.

GINGRICH: So if he's honest that it's an energy tax, he's going to lose. If he's honest that it's a huge government-run health program, he's going to lose. He's still very articulate, but he uses the language to actually muddle what people understand.

HANNITY: You see, one of the things I noticed the other night is he has broad generalizations, sweeping generalizations, platitudes, bumper stickers, slogans, fear mongering. I mean, he's got that down to a science almost. But there are no specifics about what it is and how it's going to actually impact the American people. So it makes me wonder, is it just that he's looking for victory? Is he looking to really, in his heart and soul, change America, alter America, because it's not the country that he likes, and he believes it should be this -- you know -- go ahead.

GINGRICH: You know, I think my daughter, Jackie Cushman -- is now a syndicated columnist -- caught it perfectly one day, when she wrote a column about three weeks ago. And she said we went from "change we can believe in" to trying to change what we believe. I think this is an administration dedicated to creating a very different America. And an America which has huge government, massive redistribution of resources. And I think it's very dangerous, even to them, because the Federal Reserve came out last week and said that they expect unemployment to go higher than they did and that they expect the recovery to create no net new jobs for the next five years.

HANNITY: Yes.

GINGRICH: Now, I think when the American people begin to realize we could be faced with five years of 8, 9, 10 percent unemployment.

HANNITY: It's frightening.

GINGRICH: They're going to demand that the president shift his priorities pretty dramatically and focus on job creation. And you can only get job creation by cutting taxes on small business.

HANNITY: Well, the thing that frightens me is that -- that their predictions and their analysis of the economy and what they promised has been so off base and so wrong. I'm really having a hard time struggling as to why anybody would trust them or believe that they're going to get this right, which is such a larger percentage of the economy. But do you see, as I see, change is coming and blame to Republicans now has begun here when they have both houses and the presidency?

GINGRICH: See, I don't think it's believable. You know, when he got his giant 787 billion-dollar stimulus package, he began to lose the ability to blame George W. Bush. He's now been president for seven months. He's on television every single day. He's telling us all the time how much he's doing. I think he's rapidly losing the ability to blame the Republicans for his own failures. And remember, we're now projected to have 25 percent more people out of work than they promised us back in January, if only the Congress would pass that 787 billion-dollar Bill so rapidly that it couldn't be read.

HANNITY: Yes.

GINGRICH: Now the Congress passed the Bill the way they asked them to. They've had the money now since February. And now there are going to be 25 percent more people unemployed than the Obama team promised.

HANNITY: All right, we're going to take a break. I've got a lot more to get to, especially about this Cambridge police issue. We're going to have more with Newt Gingrich coming up. Plus, who throws a better baseball: Barack Obama or George W. Bush? We're going to let you make the comparison. We have that coming up tonight. And Conspiracy Month. We have a special investigation into the death of Marilyn Monroe. And will Barack Obama apologize to the officers in Massachusetts? Coming up.

HANNITY: And we continue now with former speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich. Mr. Speaker, at this press conference that the president held the other night, the issue came up of Harvard Professor -- "Hah-vard" I always say -- Henry Louis Gates Jr. And the president literally said, "I don't -- not having been there, not having seen all the facts," and then he goes on to say that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting this professor. Now I've taken the time, and I've read the police reports from the arresting officer and a corroborating report from another officer, and I don't see that these police officers did anything wrong. The president was given the day after. Go ahead, go ahead.

GINGRICH: I was going to say two things, one of which may really surprise you. When I first became speaker, I made a number of big mistakes, because I didn't realize that when you're speaker, you're no longer just one of the guys, and you can't just have an idea, and you've got to be actually pretty careful about what you say. I think this is a good learning opportunity for the president to realize that when he doesn't know something, he shouldn't say anything. Eisenhower used to be brilliant at leaving the news media confused by refusing to get into a topic he didn't want to talk about. And the president of the United States needs to have the self-discipline to do that. But there's a second part of this that I think President Obama will probably find very hard to do, but it would really help him a lot. This was a mistake. It's not complicated. This was a mistake. He shouldn't have said it. It would be tremendous for the country if the president would just say tomorrow, "You know, I made a mistake, I shouldn't have said anything. I didn't have the details. I certainly didn't want to hurt anyone. And I'm going to try to learn to be more careful, because as president I have that obligation." To see a guy -- because he's still a very young president, he's a very new president still. And the country would actually, I think, relax a little bit if the president could be comfortable sharing with the country that he'd made a mistake.

HANNITY: You actually were pretty introspective in one of your books if I recall the title, "Lessons Learned the Hard Way."

GINGRICH: Yes, and they were pretty hard, too.

HANNITY: Well, I think I was there for Boy's Town, and I think I was there for a number -- the Gingrich that stole Christmas was, I think, was the cover of TIME magazine one year. And is it youthful, you know, inexperience? I mean, he's never been in a position of being an executive. Obviously, the presidency is a job that very few people can tell you about.

GINGRICH: Well, one of the people who really helped me understand this was Mike Dever, who had been Ronald Reagan's close, personal friend and advisor for so many years. And Dever saw me one afternoon, and he was wondering -- he and Ken Duberstein (ph) were both trying to coach me in '95, '96 when I had first become speaker. And he said to me, "I watched you on a TV show last Sunday morning, and I saw you get a question you hadn't thought about, and I watched you develop an answer on the show." He said, "It was a fine answer, but he said I don't want the speaker of the House, as a national leader, thinking up a policy on national television. If you don't already have a policy on something, back out, say, 'I need to think about that and check on it,' and let people understand you're going to be more careful." I couldn't always live up to that, but I have never forgotten how right Mike Dever was. And I think it's the same thing for the president. He's not Barack Obama,state senator. He's not even Barack Obama,United States senator. He's not even Barack Obama,Democratic nominee. This is the president of the United States, whose every word is watched worldwide. And I think that requires a frightening level of austerity and self- discipline...

HANNITY: Yes.

GINGRICH: ... and self-awareness. And it's hard. I mean, I don't blame him for it. As I said, I made a number of mistakes. If he could relax just a little bit, recognize it was a boo-boo, and just say, "Hey, I blew it. I'm sorry. I was wrong. I shouldn't have said anything."

HANNITY: Americans now, we have one poll after another. They don't trust Barack Obama as much as they used to. Dan Bourne (ph), a Democrat, Obama's very unpopular. If you look at a key issue, they don't trust him on the economy. Right track/wrong track, two-thirds of the American people think we're on the wrong track. More people are conservative. Most people think that he's spending too much money. Most people think that Obama care is a bad idea. So he's losing support. Why do you think he's losing it, and what more would he need to do to maybe gain some of that back?

GINGRICH: Well, I think they have two very big problems. Both of them very hard to solve. The first is the economy's really bad. As I said a while ago, the Federal Reserve now projects higher unemployment than they thought, and they project that we may not create any net new jobs for the next five years. That -- people are not going to tolerate that. This is Jimmy Carter time. People are going to be very, very upset if this administration doesn't get an effective jobs program, and that means the opposite direction from the energy tax, health tax, big-government model that trapped him. The second challenge they have is the one you kept talking about all last year, where you were right and some of us really underestimated how much you understood this. This is not a radical left country. This is not a country that wants giant government. Even in the Democratic Party, according to the Gallup poll, 40 percent moderate, 48 percent liberal, and 22 percent conservative. So two out of every three Democrats is a moderate or a conservative. In the country at large, it's 40 percent conservative...

HANNITY: Yes.

GINGRICH: ... 35 percent moderate, and only 21 percent liberal.

HANNITY: We -- all right. Well, those are staggering numbers. He's got a lot to contend with if he keeps staying radical. Mr. Speaker, good to see you. Thank you for being with us.

GINGRICH: Good to see you.

HANNITY: And coming up President Obama's infamous first pitch at the all-star game. Remember that in St. Louis? Well, we're going to take a look back at more of the president's great pitches. And wait until you see who he looks like as he throws the ball. That and more, next.

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By chas1299 @ Wednesday, July 29, 2009 5:00 PM

The House bills re healthcare reform under consideration result in disastrous disparate treatment of businesses and small business owners. Thousand of businesses will go under, leading to massive unemployment. Let me explain what everyone seems to be missing.

The legislation under consideration mandates businesses with a payroll of $400,000 or $500,000 or more to pay insurance premiums for employees. The size of a company’s payroll is not an indicator of whether the company makes money or the size of its profit margin. Remember, regardless of the size of a company’s payroll some barely break even, some make a modest profit.

Furthermore, businesses that are labor intensive, typically in service industries, that is with more employees rather than fewer, will be decimated by this legislation. Let me provide an example. Assume you have a company, like mine, with 150 employees all who make between $8 and $10 per hour, that generates about $150,000 in profit, and you have a company of 20 employees that generates $150,000 in profit.

The result of the healthcare legislation is that a company like mine will be mandated to pay $360,000 ($200 per month per employee for insurance premiums) per year in insurance premiums. Thus putting me and others like me into bankruptcy immediately. The company with 20 employees will pay $48,000 per year. They might survive.

The clear point is that the proposed healthcare legislation is worded so that small businesses with many employees will be crushed. That will be disastrous to our country and I can’t imagine this is what is intended.

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