Monday, May 4, 1998 | 9:44 a.m.
House Speaker Newt Gingrich outlined "Contract with America: Part II," credited the Republican Party with turning the nation's economy around and hit President Clinton on the morality issue at a GOP political rally Sunday.
Gingrich, who has had his own brushes with morality issues, said Clinton lacks the moral strength to be an effective president.
"The No. 1 job of the president is to enforce the law," Gingrich told several hundred supporters at the Sands Expo & Convention Center Sunday evening. "He is the chief law enforcement officers of the United States. He can order aids to testify."
Yet Clinton is stonewalling attempts to get at the truth by special prosecutor Kenneth Starr, according to Gingrich.
"Under Reagan and Bush, drug use in the country dropped by 72 percent," said Gingrich. "Nancy Reagan's 'Just Say No' to drugs campaign was working."
But during Clinton's campaign, Gingrich said, drug use has been increasing.
"When you have no moral authority, no one pays any attention to what you say," said Gingrich, vowing that Congress will past a strong anti-drug bill that will include cigarettes for teens.
Gingrich said he thinks illegal aliens who come into this country and sell drugs should be given a mandatory life sentence for the first offense. If it is proven the drug dealer is a professional narcotics trafficker, Gingrich added, the death penalty should be imposed.
Gingrich said Clinton's problems are very serious.
"This is a time of pain and sadness for this country," he said. "America is bigger than any one person, bigger than any one problem.
"Every American has the right to know if a law has been broken. No one, under our Constitution, is above the law, including the president."
Before speaking at the main rally, Gingrich met with GOP Host Committee members at a $2,500 per couple cocktail and buffet affair.
Gingrich spoke for an hour at the $25-per-person, or $35-per-couple, rally.
He aligned himself with Rep. John Ensign, R-Nev., who is challenging incumbent Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., for Reid's Senate seat.
"Reid does not represent the majority of the people in conservative Nevada," said Gingrich.
Gingrich credited the GOP's Contract with America, a highly publicized list of 10 goals, with being the catalyst for the positive things that have taken place in this country since 1994.
"It took 92 days to enact nine of the 10 goals," said Gingrich. "We couldn't get term limits."
Other goals were turned over in court, but Gingrich said 75 percent of the goals were achieved, including drastic changes in the welfare system, cutting taxes and saving Medicare for at least the next 10 years.
"We said we would cut taxes and finally, in '97, we cut the capital gains tax," said Gingrich. "I'm sponsoring a bill to cut the capital gains tax to 15 percent.
And he said he intends to sponsor a bill to abolish the death tax.
"The big issue being discussed in Congress right now is the size of the surplus, which is somewhere between $18 billion and $80 billion." said Gingrich.
He said he wants to sent the money back home to taxpayers, in the form of opening investment accounts for individuals who pay into FICA for Social Security benefits.
"Where do we go from here?" asked Gingrich.
He outlined four goals along the lines of the Contract with America.
Gingrich said he would like to:
* make winning the war on drugs and violent crime the highest priority;
* create a world-class educational system;
* take the budget surplus and return it to taxpayers;
* and put a cap on income tax of 25 percent. That would be the total taxes, including state, federal and local.
Gingrich also said the GOP is going block the IRS from taxing meals that casinos provide employees while on the job. Casino executives said the tax will create costly headaches and employees gripe that they cannot afford the tax.
"That's just another example of the IRS not understanding the everyday practicalities of life in America," said Gingrich.
Gingrich noted that Ensign has a bill before Congress that would put prisoners to work.
"That's a common sense approach," said Gingrich.
Gingrich praised a program at a Reno prison in which drug-sniffing dogs routinely patrol the facility and where inmates must earn privileges, such as watching television, by agreeing to work.
"This has reduced recidivism from 80 percent to 20 percent," Gingrich said.
Gingrich said he wants the same program to be implemented in federal prisons.
archive
