Gingrich Lays Out His Plan For America-- New Contract or Same Old Thing?

 Newt Gingrich has laid out his plan for American Recovery which he calls New Contract with America after watching Herman Cain surge in the polls and win the Straw poll after he put forth his plan in Florida last week. Here is an overview of his plan. How does it compare to Cain's and others?  Is it a New contract or just merely a rerun of his Old contract?
I have attempted to shorten the reading as much as possible and still keep the context of his plan.
While it is lengthy it is an opportunity to become informed on the issues that this candidate sees as important for the country.
It is vital to be informed in order to make the decision on who will lead this country in 2012 and for the next four years following.  



                                              Gingrich's Contract With America

 1. Repeal Obamacare and pass a replacement that saves lives and money by
empowering patients and doctors, not bureaucrats and politicians.
 If the federal government can coerce individuals—by threat
of fines—to buy health insurance, there is no stopping the federal government from
forcing Americans to buy any good or service.
We must either limit government or we will have government limit us.

Replacement legislation must include provisions to make health insurance more affordable
and portable by allowing Americans to purchase insurance across state lines.
It must increase price competition in healthcare. It must improve patient safety and decrease
overhead costs by digitizing all medical records, and it must introduce lawsuit reform to stop the
frivolous lawsuits that drive up the cost of Medicine.
The federal tax code should provide the same tax relief for the individual
buying his own insurance as the employer providing health insurance to its employees.Return to robust job creation with a bold set of tax cuts and regulatory reforms
that will free American entrepreneurs to invest and hire, as well as by reforming
the Federal Reserve and creating a training requirement for extended federal
unemployment benefits to encourage work and improve the quality of our
Workforce.

2. JOBS AND PROSPERITY PLAN: LOWERING TAXES
First, I pledge to veto any tax increase. American families and businesses deserve
certainty and predictability, and I will work to make permanent all current rates of
taxation that would otherwise increase automatically in 2013.

JOBS AND PROSPERITY PLAN: TAX SIMPLIFICATION WITH AN
OPTIONAL FLAT TAX
My legislation will also include an optional flat tax. All tax filers would be given the
option to pay their income taxes subject to current income tax provisions or to pay under
a lower single rate of taxation with limited deductions.
Such an optional flat tax system would create a new standard deduction, which would be
above the established poverty level, meaning an optional flat tax would not unfairly target
the poor.
An optional flat tax would eliminate the Alternative Minimum Tax. And if a person had
twice as much income as another, he or she would be taxed twice as much. Furthermore,
a single rate tax structure would eliminate taxes on savings, capital gains, and dividends.
Saving would increase and businesses would expand to create new jobs.

JOBS AND PROSPERITY PLAN: FEWER AND SMARTER REGULATIONS
To empower job-creators, we must get rid of regulations that prevent them from growing
and hiring.
My Jobs and Prosperity package would repeal the Dodd-Frank legislation, a 2,300-
page law passed in 2010 that mandates 400 new regulations written by unelected
bureaucrats.
Repeal the Sarbanes-Oxley law, which has crippled American start-ups with
burdensome compliance costs, driven publicly-traded companies private, and forced
American companies overseas.
Replace the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) which is harassing job
creators.
JOBS AND PROSPERITY PLAN: REFORMING THE FEDERAL RESERVE
I will also include in jobs and prosperity legislation provisions to reform the Federal
Reserve. They will include a full-scale audit of Federal Reserve activities as well as a
narrowing of the Fed’s statutory mandate.

JOBS AND PROSPERITY PLAN: REFORMING THE UNEMPLOYMENT
COMPENSATION SYSTEM
The best way to repair our broken unemployment compensation system is to make the
problem of perennially high unemployment obsolete through robust economic growth.
It is fundamentally wrong to give people money for 99 weeks for doing nothing. That's
why we undertook and passed welfare reform when I was Speaker. It is also why I will
introduce a training requirement for extended federal unemployment benefits.
This program should be delegated to the 50 states so each can experiment with the best
way to use unemployment compensation as a job training program.
I look forward to learning more about the most innovative state-level job-training
programs, such as Georgia Works and Texas Back to Work...

3. Unleash America’s full energy production potential in oil, natural gas, coal,
biofuels, wind, nuclear oil shale and more, creating jobs, stimulating a
sustainable manufacturing boom, lowering gasoline and other energy prices,
increasing government revenues, strengthening the dollar, and bolstering
national security.
It is time to harness the immense natural energy resources our country has, get Americans
back to work, and lower gas, diesel, and other energy prices for every American.
My administration will pursue an “all of the above” American Energy Policy that allows
expanded development of oil, natural gas, coal, biofuels, wind, and nuclear sources of
energy.
As President, I will immediately reset our energy policy by removing bureaucratic and
legal obstacles to responsible oil and natural gas development in the United States.

We must also replace the EPA, which pursues an anti-jobs agenda the economy simply
cannot sustain. A pro-growth Environmental Solutions Agency will in its place balance
environmental issues with economic realities and will focus on incentives for new
solutions, research, and technologies, and pursue a cooperative approach with local
communities.

4. Save Medicare and Social Security by giving Americans more choices and tools
to live longer, healthier lives with greater financial independence.
 ...we need to think outside the box with fundamental, structural reforms that would
transform and modernize these two programs, changing how they work to achieve their
goals. Any American who wants to enter or remain in the existing Medicare and Social
Security programs will be able to do so, but we will also introduce optional alternatives
that give Americans more control over their health and retirement.
Any American who wants to enjoy the existing Medicare and Social Security systems
will be able to do so. At the same time, this legislation will provide Americans with new
options. It will offer voluntary market-oriented alternatives that allow Americans to take
more control of their own retirement planning.
As more Americans move voluntarily onto the new market-oriented systems, costs will
naturally decline.
Medicare
First, stop paying the crooks. An estimated $70 to $120 billion a year is paid to crooks by
Medicare and Medicaid.
My proposed legislation will offer seniors new choices in Medicare, as well. It will give
them the option to choose, on a voluntary basis, either to remain on the existing program,
or to transition to a more personalized system in the private sector with greater options
for better care. If they select the personalized system, beneficiaries would receive support
to cover their private sector premiums. Giving all seniors the option to choose their
insurance provider will improve price competition and help lower costs for the program.

5. Pass a balanced budget amendment
... each agency has to find better ways to do things and more innovative ways to get things done.

... to reducing the deficit ... empower job-creators to hire millions more
Americans by dramatically reducing tax and regulatory burdens, and a program to
unleash our bountiful untapped sources of American energy. By creating more wealth
and more taxpayers, and by developing billions of dollars worth of new American energy
resources, we will dramatically increase federal, state and local revenues and decrease
budget deficits.
More revenue can also come through American energy development and through better
development of federally owned land including the 69% of Alaska and 85% of Nevada
We can have higher revenues without having higher taxes.
That is why this legislation will strive above all to corral the reckless
growth of federal spending.
... legislation must dramatically overhaul the entire structure of the federal civil service,

6. Control the border by January 1, 2014 and establish English as the official
language of government; reform the legal visa system, and make it much easier
to deport criminals and gang members while making it easier for law abiding
visitors to come to the US.
This bill will waive every obstacle to controlling the border and would shift resources to
achieve virtually 100% control by January 1, 2014. If necessary, we would move one-half
of the 23,000 Washington-area Department of Homeland Security bureaucrats to the
Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona borders.
We want the best legal students in our universities and colleges, and then staying to
create American jobs.
We want legal businessmen and businesswomen visiting the United States easily and
comfortably so they can do more business in the United States and create more American
jobs.
We want potential investors and entrepreneurs to visit America easily so they can create
American jobs.
Finally, we want family members to find it easy to visit legally for holidays and family
events to strengthen the human bonds that we Americans cherish.

7.Revitalize our national security system to meet 21st century threats by
restructuring and adequately funding our security agencies to function within a
grand strategy for victory over those who seek to kill us or to limit American
freedom.
The next Administration and Congress must decisively address the following realities:
1. There are very, very different challenges emerging simultaneously and each
requires a fundamentally different strategic response;
2. The bureaucracies of national and homeland security, intelligence, diplomacy
and space activities are all decaying in their effective implementation
capability and are wrapped up in red tape and inefficiency;
3. Our military infrastructure has become dangerously outdated, with our arsenal
and equipment in urgent need of new investment;
4. There are new emerging technologies endangering us – for example,
electromagnetic pulse weapons, cyberwar, and lawfare, which we are not
prepared to deal with;
5. American leaders are tired after seven decades of being the world’s
preeminent power, and are very resistant to putting in the time and energy it
will take to understand the emerging threats and the necessary responses.

8.  Maximize the speed and impact of medical breakthroughs by removing
unnecessary obstacles that block new treatments from reaching patients and
emphasizing research spending toward urgent national priorities, like brain
science with its impact on Alzheimer’s, autism, Parkinson’s, mental health and
other conditions that knowledge of the brain will help solve.
A key first step is to transform the Food and Drug Administration to allow these
breakthroughs to proceed rapidly.


9. Restore the proper role of the judicial branch by using the clearly delineated
powers available to the president and Congress to correct, limit, or replace
judges who violate the Constitution.
.The time has come to reestablish a balance among the three branches of government
according to the Constitution.

10.  Enforce the Tenth Amendment by starting an orderly transfer of power and
responsibility from the federal government back “to the states, respectively, or
to the people,” as the Constitution requires.

Read HERE the entire text of  the plan or you can copy and paste this link . The original is offered in the PDF format  which you find to the right of the document.

 http://www.desmoinesregister.com/section/documentcloud&dckeyword=253688-gingrich-contract-with-america_digest