Word: contract
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...first the system he installed worked wondrously. To much ridicule and skepticism, Gingrich had promised to bring to a vote the 10 items in the Contract during the first 100 days. By that deadline he had actually rammed through everything, with the single exception of term limits. On the few occasions when the freshmen rebelled--as when they pressed for campaign-finance reform--he shut them down with a promise to do it next year. Likewise they had vowed not to rest until they had killed at least three Cabinet agencies, but they are going home for Christmas without even...
...largest special-interest pacs gave to either party in the past two years and makes sure contributors to the Democrats are marked down in his book as "unfriendly.'' Representative John Boehner of Ohio is in charge of orchestrating how interest-group lobbyists can raise cash to promote the Contract. What do the lobbyists get in return? Awe-inspiring access to the legislative process, including the right to write the bills themselves, like the one passed last February that imposed a 13-month moratorium on federal regulations. During floor debate, the Gucci set stood close by, typing out on their laptop...
...road to that society is clear-cut, straight and narrow: tear down the liberal welfare state, cut taxes, cut government spending, reduce entitlements, balance the budget, sign the Contract with America, dump Clinton and his liberal friends, give power to the states. Privatize, debureaucratize, downsize! And if America fails to heed his call? "The consequences will be incalculable," he writes. "The underclass of poverty and violence will continue to grow. Our economy will gradually fall farther and farther behind those of our best competitors. Our vision will blur and our civilization continue to lose its focus...
Thus far, Gingrich and his hard-core freshman revolutionaries have failed to persuade working majorities in the Congress to buy more than a few items in the Contract. But they have made a start on the central question of slowing the growth of government. Still, the Republican budget doesn't really cut the size of the government as it exists today. It only reduces the share of gross domestic product that government would have taken if existing spending patterns had gone unchanged. The Republican proposal does promise a balanced budget in 2002, a signal accomplishment. Most important, the argument...
Gingrich: First of all, we kept our word, and I think that changes the underlying dynamic of politics in terms of promises made, promises kept in the Contract with America. We're trying to actually have an adult conversation with the American people instead of a 30-second pandering...