Winning The Future: A 21st Century Contract with America (Hardcover)

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Key Phrases: personal account option, chief actuary, patriotic education, United States, Supreme Court, Founding Fathers (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

According to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, America currently faces five threats that could undermine, if not eliminate, the United States if immediate steps are not taken to correct them. The threats as he sees them are Islamic terrorists and rogue dictatorships armed with nuclear or biological weapons; the removal of God from American public life; a loss of patriotism and sense of America's history; a decline in economic supremacy because of poor science and math education; and the increasing budgetary burden of Social Security and Medicare. To tackle these problems, Gingrich offers his "21st Century Contract with America," which he outlines in great detail in this bold and thought-provoking book. His updated contract, which comes a decade after the original Republican Contract with America that marked the high point of Gingrich's national power, calls for a dramatically simplified tax code that favors savings and investment; government investment in science and technology, particularly regarding space, energy, and the environment; transforming Social Security into personal savings accounts; overhauling the civil justice system to reduce the burden of lawsuits; and updating the federal government, including the privatization of some functions, so that it moves at the speed and effectiveness of the information age. And that's just the beginning. He also calls for tripling the size of America's intelligence community, reforming its election system, developing a more intelligent health care system that creates jobs and increases quality of life, and balancing the federal budget.

Gingrich believes that this ambitious agenda can be accomplished, but only if it receives grassroots support. The entrenched political system, with its lobbyists, bloated bureaucracies, and the complicity of the media, is too self-serving to fix itself, he stresses. Concise and clearly presented, Winning the Future is long on specifics and short on rhetoric, and it succeeds as a springboard for political discourse. Gingrich's aim is clearly to inspire citizens to take responsibility for the county's direction by demanding more of their government and their leaders. --Shawn Carkonen

From Publishers Weekly

The conservative Republican maverick opens his latest work with a "traditional American values" self-test; readers who score well may be energized by this assertive broadside against all that ails the body politic. As Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives (1994-1998), Gingrich was the prime mover and shaker behind the 1994 Contract with America that ushered in GOP dominance in Congress. Here, he identifies a quintet of foreign and domestic threats and serves up a new blueprint to help defeat them. On the international front, he says, "irreconcilable" Islamic terrorists and rogue dictatorships are eager to secure and use WMD, while China and India endanger our economic might. At home, the "liberal elite minority is winning" and the "conservative majority" is losing, resulting in godlessness in the public arena, the erosion of patriotism and out-of-control benefit programs that will "collapse the system." To preserve "the core values of the American people," Gingrich supports a number of fixes, including adapting Cold War strategies to the war on terror, recasting education and immigration in patriotic guises and forging ahead with private investment and health savings accounts. Interspersed with these well-worn arguments are notions about God, country and public life that are long on invective and short on detail. Will legislating the centrality of "our Creator" in defining American rights improve jurisprudence? Will establishing a federal and state "program office in patriotic education" cure under-performing school systems? Gingrich never manages to link his ambitious project to a cogent critique of the left, resorting instead to predictable jabs at the usual suspects: liberal journalists and academics, Bill Clinton and the Democrats, France and the United Nations. Combine this volatile mélange of ideas with chapter-ending plugs for his Web site, mass distribution plans for "The Contract" and "A Walking Tour of God in Washington, D.C.," and some readers might be forgiven for suspecting that Gingrich wants to win something more tangible than the future.
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Regnery Publishing, Inc.; First Printing edition (January 10, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0895260425
• ISBN-13: 978-0895260420
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (102 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #476,256 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

173 of 212 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Literate popular political writing, January 11, 2005

By	J. Cadwallader (Chicago) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a concise, pointed, and descriptive analysis of the election issues likely to dominate the next few national electoral cycles. More impressively, it's written by an Amazon junkie (check out his profile!) likely to be directly involved at the highest levels in exactly the campaigns to address those issues. While a few have written for publication as they campaigned (Churchill)it took forty years to publish Reagan, and only now is the development of his political philosophy getting broad attention.

If for no other reason, this is a must read for simple civic awareness, and knowledge for the informed voter. See also his prior book on health care, and try to find another candidate this far ahead in addressing these issues.

28 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Winning the Presidency?, June 3, 2005

By	Jeffrey Leach (Omaha, NE USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Gingrich for President? If the article I recently read is any indication, we may see those three words on a bumper sticker at some point in the next three years. I don't remember the source for the article, probably something dredged up by my local paper from the New York Times, but the report indicated that this former Speaker of the House and one of the few sources of illumination during the dark years of the Clinton regime may well toss his hat into the presidential race in 2008. He is eminently qualified to hold the highest office in the land if his record is any indication. Newt Gingrich's Contract with America proved highly popular with a majority of the voting public. His ability to temper some of the more extremist positions advocated by the evil hordes in the White House during the '90s also helped him gain name recognition and support. Certainly, his Washington network will assist him if he chooses to run for the White House. He's even extended a hand in recent months to former nemesis Hillary "Red Hilly" Clinton over the issue of health care reform. "Winning the Future" might well be his opening salvo in the future race.

Gingrich's 1994 Contract with America sought to apply a leash to an out of control Congress, discourage illegitimacy, balance the federal budget, crack down on crime, keep U.S. troops away from U.N. military commanders, end the welfare dole, and a bunch of other stuff you can find in an appendix at the end of this book. For the most part, Gingrich and his republican colleagues succeeded in fulfilling the contract. Now Newt is articulating a new Contract with America, a 21st Century contract if you will, that identifies a host of pressing new issues that he feels our country must deal with if it is to survive. Not surprisingly, the greatest theme in this document is Islamic terrorism and its threat to our way of life. Other points include reworking Social Security, restoring a belief in God as a central tenet in American life, immigration, and reforming education, health care, and the legal system. A heady agenda, to be sure, but one that Gingrich argues is absolutely essential to long term stability. Considering his past record in Congress, this affable southern historian may well succeed in accomplishing some of these goals if we decide to elect him a few years down the line.

Boy, where to start! Although the book runs less than 200 pages, the author covers a lot of ground. Let's start with terrorism, shall we? Gingrich essentially supports most of President Bush's actions in the war against Al-Qaeda. He goes further, however, by saying that we need to triple the size of our intelligence agencies to face down the threat, and we need to amp up the amount of defense spending at the same time. As for the sorry state of Social Security, the book again follows Bush's lead by endorsing privatization of at least part of the payroll tax. Gingrich endorses the Ryan-Sununu bill, a bill calling for private accounts that claims workers will amass some seven trillion dollars in assets by 2020 and will boast surpluses by 2030 that can help pay off the debt accumulated under the currently flawed system. The author supports a guest worker program for hispanic immigrants, argues that the president ought to unseat left-wing judicial activists using a technique implemented by Jefferson against Federalist court stacking, and contends that forcing the health care system to upgrade medical records and other information through computer technology will help reduce costs. Like I said, the book covers a lot of ground.

That last point, the importance of science and technological innovation, plays a huge role in many of Gingrich's initiatives. He's a very firm believer that America's greatness stems in large part from its ability to capitalize on the best technology has to offer. The author worries incessantly about the increasingly dismal state of public education in this country, claiming that declining standards in the hard sciences will cost America its edge in developing better medicines, better weapons to combat terrorism, and eventually lead to an undermining of the economy as China and India gain an advantage. He believes that dumping billions into promoting science and technology, through low or zero interest loans to those students planning on studying math and any of the hard sciences, will pay off in the long run. America needs to make it easier for foreign technology students--stymied by visa restrictions put in place as a result of the September 11 disasters--to enter this country, study, and stay as citizens. Gingrich should find a sympathetic audience with this argument in many corners. Other claims, however, don't pass muster.

I disagree strongly with his support for a guest worker program for illegal immigrants. Most American citizens regardless of race should. Illegals as they stand now, or as members of a workers' program, drive down wages for everyone else. Everything we hear about this issue revolves around the hoary old claim that "Americans don't want these jobs." Horse hockey. Americans don't want low wage jobs, and most of these jobs don't pay a decent wage because the companies can hire and exploit illegals. Cutting off the flow of cheap labor, or at least severely curtailing it, will lead to higher wages. If a company can't cut it without exploiting its labor force, it will go out of business. Other companies will then arise that can do the job cheaper with a better-paid and better-trained labor force. Besides, most of the people that hire illegals pay wages under the table in order to avoid paying taxes. How is that fair to anyone? This problem aside, Gingrich's book is largely relevant and intriguing enough to warrant a wide audience. Give it a shot.

27 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars This Book will Spark Thought, August 18, 2005

By	M. D. Thomas "ReadingSailor" (New London, CT) - See all my reviews

This book was an interesting read. It gave a lot of information about different political issues of the day. It talks about how our government has failed to evolve with the times in the way it gathers, processes and disseminates information. He also explains how this flaw keeps our government from doing what's best for us the American public. As can be expected this book is written from a conservative view point, and many of the proposed solutions would never be accepted by those who are inclined to be more liberal or extremely conservative. This book will have something to offer those that are moderate to slightly conservative. Most of these proposals are rather ambitious and will most likely never come to fruition because it would require those in power to relinquish some of that power. Considering the current state of American politics I can't foresee that ever happening. This book gives some background and offers solutions. It is good for generating a political discussion and framing it around proposed solutions instead of the constant blame game that dominates the headlines and other books. While some of his solutions will require complete overhauls of many governmental programs it should spark thought about changing them instead of simply tweaking them, as has been our government's policy for quite some time now. I believe entering the arena of political ideas and sparking debate is truly what Mr. Gingrich intended with this book and I believe it will do that for everyone who reads it. It is a quick read but gave me plenty to read about and discuss with friends and relatives that are interested in politics. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in American Politics and how our government works and ask them to at least consider what he proposes and work from there.