At Thursday’s GOP presidential primary debate, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich came out swinging against the 12-member Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction appointed to hammer out a long-term debt deal.
Gingrich scored points with the Ames, Iowa audience by calling the committee “as dumb an idea as Washington has come up with,” adding that it should be scrapped in favor of a legislative process that would operate in full view of the public.
“We owe it to the American people to say this committee should be in public,” Gingrich said. “We should all know what they’re talking about. There should be no surprises.”
Otherwise, Gingrich said, another last-minute crisis could materialize threatening something terrible if “the establishment” doesn’t get its way.
“Well, I for one am sick and tired of Washington backing us into a corner where our choice is two terrible outcomes,” he exclaimed.
Gingrich said the joint committee members were appointed for political reasons and were likely to offer a choice between deep defense spending cuts and tax increases. To significant applause, he likened the choice to a committee telling Americans, “We can shoot you in the head or cut off your right leg; which do you prefer?”
Gingrich suggested instead that all congressional committees and subcommittees should be tasked with finding savings in programs over which they have jurisdiction, and reporting their results back to Congress.