Gingrich Blasts Obama at Pasadena Tea Party Town Hall

Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich on Tuesday called President Barack Obama backwards and blasted him as the “most effective food stamp president in American history” before a jam-packed crowd of over 300 in the Romanesque Room at the Castle Green Hotel in Old Pasadena where he was the guest of the Pasadena Tea Party.

In contrast, Gingrich presented himself as an executive who will put the economy in order. “I would like to be the best paycheck president in American history,” he told the cheering crowd of 300.

Gingrich pledged a second Contract with America if he is chosen as the official nominee of the Republican party to challenge Obama in 2012. One of the bills in that contract will be a 10th Amendment enforcement act, he said.

During the 1994 Congressional elections, the Republican Party presented a document called Contract with America that provides specific agenda and a detailed plan of the Congressional Representatives. Gingrich was one of the authors of that contract.

Should he win the White House race, Gingrich said, “The first executive order will be signed probably around 3:15 in the afternoon on Inauguration Day, we’ll abolish all of the White House czars. Now here’s why I’m forcing the tenth amendment matters. Our Declaration of Independence is the key to American exceptionalism.”

“Not only do you have these rights, they’re unalienable. No judge, no bureaucrat, no politician can take away your rights. That means, that the center of sovereignty is the citizen! Not the government. And you the citizen, loan power to the government which is why the Constitution begins ‘We the people.’ It doesn’t say ‘We the Supreme Court,’  it doesn’t say ‘We the politicians,’  it doesn’t say ‘We the president,’ it says, ‘We the people.’”

Gingrich attacked Obama’s economic policies from taxes, to health care, border control and his fight on terror.

“I don’t question Barrack Obama’s patriotism. I question his judgement. I question his wisdom. I question what he thinks works,” the former House Speaker told the mostly partisan crowd.

But the loudest cheer came when he called for the repeal of the Obamacare plan, the administration’s controversial health care program.

Gingrich proposed the abolition of the current corporate tax rate, instead is pushing for a 12.5% corporate tax that he says could raise more money for the government and attract the estimated $700 billion American capital invested offshore to “return home.”

Taxing corporations 35% in taxes only forces these companies “to hire 375 tax lawyers to find every loophole to pay zero. But at 12.5% they’ll fire half the tax lawyers and write a check for the federal government!”

In fact, Gingrich is calling for a freeze all tax rates.

Another thorny issue that Gingrich addressed is the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the wide regulatory reform introduced by the U.S. government in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis. He described the Dodd-Frank regulatory reform as the worst bureaucratic socialism.

“Bureaucratic socialism is a very ingenious model. It says, you get to own your company, but the bureaucrats will run it. You want to talk to bankers and small banks about what’s happening, and talk to small businesses. Talk to people in home building, and every single area, they’re totally jammed up because of the federal bureaucrats! Well, if we repeal Dodd-Frank, you would loosen up the economy overnight and you start having loans being made locally. I just talked to a banker in Georgia who thinks that 30% of his staff now deals with customers and 70% deal with federal regulations. This is insane!,” he declared.

He also took a potshot at Obama’s so-called class warfare wherein the administration wants to impose more taxes on the wealthy. This proposed tax measure was one of the major roadblocks in negotiations between the Republicans and the Obama administration to raise America’s debt ceiling in July.

The debate on the debt ceiling shook the markets and reverberated across the globe as the U.S. loomed to defaulting on its debt payment for the first time. The insecurity in the U.S. markets also pushed Standards & Poor’s to downgrade the U.S. credit ratings from Triple-A to AA+ in early August.

Tamara Colbert, wife of John Colbert who ran an unsuccessful campaign for Congress last year, thanked the crowd who attended the meeting. She said 2012 is going to be a great year for a conservative victory, in reference to the Republicans’ presidential campaign.

She reminded Gingrich that America needs a good leader and a champion.

“We need a spirit of revival, of excellence, and self-reliance — something that is very much lacking in the current administration, because we’re a nation that can do anything we want when we set our minds to it. Americans bring the rest of the world up when we come up, and that’s the leadership that I think we can get here and so appreciate Mr. Gingrich coming and taking your time before the debates tomorrow.”