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Audio CD Description 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

Customer Reviews Winning the Presidency? 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. Same Old Drivel I went to Newt's book signing spectacle last night at Barnes & Noble in West Des Moines, Iowa. Of course, he was fashionably late. He gave a short speech before signing books and letting people have their photos taken with him. I scanned through most of the book's subject matter. He concurs with President Bush that Social Security is a huge problem (when there is a simple solution:money collected for Social Security can only be used to pay out Social Security benefits, not other government expenses). Newt is trying to portray the image that he will run in '08 by making the rounds in Iowa. Hopefully, he will so that Hillary will have an easy kill. Powerful Focal Point--Not Perfect But Best Available Vision The author provides a litmus test up front by which one can decide if they want to read the book--ten questions. I agreed with 94% of his propositions. The issues he has chosen to highlight here are not perfectly reasoned, but they are the best available and worthy of support. In the one area where I have spent a lifetime, that of intelligence, Newt Gingrich is flawed on the one hand--suggesting that we need to triple the amount of money we spend on intelligence is certainly well-intentioned but understandably uninformed about the nuances of national intelligence--more money just makes these people worse [see my book ON INTELLIGENCE: Spies and Secrecy in an Open World, with a Foreword by Senator Boren, and NEW CRAFT OF INTELLIGENCE: Personal, Public, & Political with a Foreword by Senator Roberts]--and brilliant on the other. When he writes so clearly about how we need to monitor all knowledge being created worldwide, with virtual real-time translations services, a Google for science & technology, and no publication overseas going more than ninety days without being translated into English, I am just blown away. This is what the national Open Source Agency recommended by the 9-11 Commission is supposed to do, but CIA is trying to "capture" that mission, which they have consistently screwed over since the end of World War II. Where it really matters, Newt Gingrich not only gets it, he is leading us. He also focuses on our lack of participation in global knowledge forums across all domains, and he champions nothing less than a global presence and global monitoring of all knowledge. This is *powerful* stuff. I miss Ronald Reagan. I still want John McCain to be President. Somewhere in there, Newt Gingrich and Pat Buchanan have important roles to play. They have earned the right to share--but not monopolize--leadership in America.