Speaking on a conference call Sunday night hosted by Tea Party Patriots, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich committed Republican political sacrilege, admitting to a fight with President Reagan on the issue of tax cuts.
“I fought president Reagan when he tried to raise taxes in 1982,” Gingrich said. “I fought President Bush when he tried to raise taxes in 1990. That took a fair amount of courage.” (RELATED: Full coverage of Newt Gingrich)
Gingrich was responding to a question about “trust issues” among the GOP electorate. He was asked specifically about his former support for an individual health care mandate and his work on global warming, and asked, “why should we, and how can we trust you now?”
The former Speaker responded by chronicling his record — including, among other things, his tax-related ideological fight with Reagan.
The former Speaker has noted this fact before, for instance in his 2008 speech at CPAC.
Gingrich’s major opponent in Florida, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, has been running ads casting doubt on Gingrich’s claims that he was close to Reagan and worked with him on many issues.
