Newt's Solyndra

Obama's Blueprint for a Clean Energy Future:

"Maintaining our leadership in research and development is critical to winning the future and deploying innovative technologies that will create quality jobs and move towards clean energy economy that reduces our reliance on oil. But as we aspire to achieve new breakthroughs – a battery that will take a car 300 miles on a single charge or a way to turn sunlight into fuel like gasoline, we area already beginning to see how our investments in the future are changing the game today. Through the Recovery Act, the Administration has invested in a host of clean energy programs and ultimately supported thousands of projects across the country targeted at the demonstration of clean energy projects in every state."

 Newt's 21st Century Contract with America:

"Today, we are on the cusp of an explosion of new science that will create new opportunities in health, agriculture, energy, and materials technology.Breakthroughs in brain science, in particular, will open up enormous opportunities for cures and treatments for Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, autism, mental illness and learning disabilities. The question in the twenty-first century is whether we reform our system so we can educate, regulate, and invest in a way that allows us to continue to be at the forefront of innovation....

 "...Furthermore, government agencies such as the National Institutes for Heath have the opportunity to use scientific research funding today in a way that will avert massive costs and human suffering in the future.

"As Americans now live longer than ever, one of the greatest fiscal threats in health is the rising cost of treating Alzheimer’s patients. The current estimate is that the combined public and private cost of Alzheimer’s between today to 2050 will be $20 trillion. That is one and a half times the current total federal debt. But a smart emphasis on brain science and innovation today can change this projection for the better..

"...While this topic may initially seem unusual in a proposed 21st Century Contract with America, I look forward to laying out my case of why I believe that brain science will soon be a major part of planning for better health and longer lives with greater independence and lower costs to the federal and state governments. It will also be an area in which American leadership could lead to an enormous number of new American jobs providing services for the entire world."

Stimulus for green jobs to solve the energy crisis, stimulus for healthcare jobs to solve the Alzheimer's crisis. Six of one, half dozen of the other. 


The former Speaker has a habit of picking favored projects for incentives. 


The Club for Growth's Presidential White Paper on Gingrich documents his accomplishments as a solid conservative but also notes his penchant for big government meddling when it seems to be politically expedient or it benefits one of his pet projects. They conclude: 

"Unfortunately, the problems in Speaker Gingrich’s record are frequent enough and serious enough to give pause. On two of the most important recent issues that confronted limited government conservatives (creating the new budget busting Medicare drug entitlement, and the Wall Street bailout), Gingrich was on the wrong side. His advocacy of an individual health care mandate is problematic. His penchant for tinkering with rewards for favored industries and outcomes shows a troubling willingness to use federal power to coerce taxpayers into his preferred direction. And his occasional hostility toward conservatives who do not share his desire to support liberal Republicans or to compromise on matters of principle is worrisome."

While Newt has apparently repented of his romp on the couch with Princess Nancy, there are plenty of other issues he's been on the wrong side of, some of them recently. Though he's not the flip-flopper Romney is, Gingrich is not exactly the model of consistency. He preaches smaller government while promoting big government programs that he personally approves up. He talks a good game and debates well, but we must understand that his inconsistency points to a philosophy rooted in compromise and political expediency.