Customer Reviews

Contract with America

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In 1993, Democrats, with the help of Vice-President Gore, passed the largest tax increase in America. Through 1993, and 1994, there was no success with these tax hikes. Fortunately for America, Newt Gingrich and an overwhelming majority of Congressional Republicans were elected into office in November of 1994. What the recipe to the Republican's success? This book. As oppose to pork barrel spending, and double talk, Republicans sent a clear vision to the people, showing what they wanted and how it would get done. This was more than a mere election promise, it was the best way to renew America from the tight grip of the Clinton Administration. It worked. Within the first 100 days of the new Republican majority, 9 of the 10 points published in this contract were passed by the House. The Republican's promise to live up to their vision, and make the Contract happen is probably what has enabled them to maintain the leadership in the House and Senate. (The population of Vermont did not vote on whether or not Sen. Jeffords should switch political parties.)This book is the key to the Gingrich Revolution and should be in the hands of all conservatives!

Within this book are ideas that have helped make America a better place in terms of the economy, crime reduction, welfare reform, and improving conditions for families. I'll admit Newt Gingrich is not going to win the character of the year award, but his treatise, along with approval from his fellow Republicans, was a stepping-stone to ensure that wasteful, inefficient liberal spending was ended and fiscal responsibility was integrated. Because of this, we enjoy the budget surpluses of today.

Unfortunately, not all parts of the Contract were signed into law, but what did get signed clearly shows in what it set out to accomplish. Gingrich takes on many issues like budget deficits, welfare, crime, family issues, judicial affairs, the size of government, and job creation and offers commons sense ideas on how to either improve in these areas or solve these burdens on the American people. He gives hypothetical myths and answers with actual facts, and how the Contract was not some kind of political stunt or way to win voters. It was a necessary collection of ideas that stress personal and fiscal responsibility, limited government, liberty, and safety at home and abroad. It also preaches the need to end modern liberal spending pracices and return to more sensical limits to government's scope and power. Luckily for America, the Contract started the ball rolling to clean up government and give more voice to the people who desire the power to fix America's problems.

Every political party that wishes to guide America's future should be required to assemble a treatise such as this. The Contract with America is a bold and fresh plan for dealing with the problems that plague us -over-taxation, over-regulation, poverty, welfare, failing public schools, violence, budget deficits, and an out-of-control legal system. Many of these problems have been around for decades, with most attempts to resolve them rooted in the liberal philosophy of government knows best. Yet, after forty years of liberal experimentation and spending trillions of dollars, the only real change is that we now have a horrendously oversized federal bureaucracy with a price tag that stifles economic growth. The Contract with America recognizes the failure of the liberal tax-and-spend philosophy and realizes that it is time to try a new approach. The Contract provides the essential plan for dealing with these core problems/issues, except the solutions are rooted in a conservative philosophy where maximum freedom and individual responsibility are at the core. This book is must reading for conservatives who wish to look into the mind of perhaps this country's most brilliant conservative visionary, Newt Gingrich. Liberals should probably also read this book in order to dispense with the myths and misinformation that they have accepted wholesale from a media biased against the conservative ideas contained in The Contract.

The Contract with America was an interesting approach to communicating a political agenda to a broader audience. While this reviewer was living abroad during those years, it seems as if it were the only serious attempt by a political movement to provide some level of ideological justification to its agenda.
Certainly, no one reads or even pays attention to political platforms anymore. Indeed, it is common for a candidate to directly contradict his platforms position and no one even notices anymore. It is a rare politician that actually understands his own policies or even pretends to do so.
While one may disagree with the positions in the Contract with America, it must be admitted that the Contract with America is a fairly rigorous attempt to adopt policies to address issues with an ideological framework. It would be a much better world if politicians were indeed required to develop such documents from time to time to justify their existence and explain their agendas in common sense language that the average voter would be willing to read and follow.

Anyone looking at what the Republican controlled congress did TO us knows that this was not a Contract WITH America but a Contract ON America.

Shame on you. We need more Democrats in the Senate so that we can get things done. No more Bush to threaten a veto for anything that needed to be done.

When the Republican party initiated the Contract with America, maybe they were talking about a different kind of 'contract' ?

The reactionary lunacy contained within this book and the opposition it engendered provided a major contribution to the success of the Clinton administration. It's a book for people beliving that America should be a country with a minority of haves and a majority of have-nots who serve them.

Nevertheless, it's an important historical document. Read it to understand what might have happened had Americans chosen to go over to the "dark side."