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Newt Gingrich was born on June 17, 1943, in Harrisburg, Pennyslvania, but later moved to Columbus, Georgia. In 1978 he was elected to Congress and was re-elected 10 times. During his tenure as Speaker of the House he championed the "Contract with America," which detailed Republican efforts to shrink government, promote lower taxes and reform welfare systems. After an ethics scandal, he resigned his seat in Congress in 1999. He is a married father of two adult daughters.
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Newt Gingrich would repeal a provision of the Voting Rights Act which would allow bilingual ballots and, in effect, potentially disenfranchise millions of voters. He has also said that voter ID measures need to be instituted in all 50 states to preserve the integrity of the elections process.
Newt Gingrich vows to remove what he says are obstacles to job creation caused by regulations, programs and bureaucracies created under President Obama. He says he will implement a new energy policy to promote energy development and jobs in the U.S.
Newt Gingrich would make permanent Bush-era tax cuts, eliminate capital gains and estate taxes and lower the corporate tax rate. Gingrich would make work training a requirement in order to receive unemployment insurance.
In 1983, Newt Gingrich voted to make Martin Luther King Jr. Day a federal holiday, and early in his political career was affiliated with a group of moderate Republicans devoted to move beyond Southern conservatives’ tattered civil rights record.
Newt Gingrich is a supporter of school choice, including a "no limit" charter school program in which all the money allocated for student education goes directly to the school. Gingrich wants teachers evaluated based on student achievement, and would shrink the federal Department of Education as a way to return power to states and communities.
Newt Gingrich wants to repeal and replace the president’s health care reform bill and says nationalizing health care would hurt Americans. He says increased competition would provide more choices and lower prices. Gingrich supports putting the sickest people who can’t afford coverage into a high-risk pool.
Newt Gingrich has said that the criminal justice system is broken and that conservatives need to lead the way to fix it. He has teamed up with the NAACP for a special report sounding the call to explore alternatives to incarcerating more prisoners.
Newt Gingrich is a longtime opponent of entitlement programs, namely food stamps. He recently called President Obama the “Food Stamp President” and suggested that African-Americans demand paychecks instead of food stamps.
As House Speaker, Newt Gingrich played an instrumental role in the U.S.’s involvement in conflicts in Bosnia, Kosovo and Haiti. He has been critical of the war in Afghanistan. Gingrich supports pathways to citizenship for illegal immigrants and English as the official language.
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