how are they going to feel about pressing on with that commitment? >> one of the interesting challenges about this job has been the responsibility of waging two wars, neither of which i had anything to do with starting. and certainly i saw in 2007 and 2008, how unpopular what we were knowing iraq was. how unpopular the surge was. i had to cancel a trip to latin america in the fall of, i think, 2007, because it looked like republican support was crumbling and that we might end up with congressional action to stop the surge. for me, is the reality, as a historian, and i like to remind people of this, with the

exception of the purse couple of years of world war two, there has never been a popular war in the united states. in our whole history. they have all been controversial. in each case, it has required the leadership of the president whether it was president truman in korea, president wilson, world war i, president johnson, initially in vietnam, certainly president bush, the first president bush with the gulf war. people forget that when the president said he was going to reverse saddam's invasion of kuwait, it was 15% public support. this unhappiness and certainly the war weary after a decade rests heavily on all this, i think. the key is, how we complete our

mission as we have largely done in iraq in a way that protects american national security interests and the american people and contributes to stability? most people would say we have been largely successful in that respect in iraq. i think we are on a path to do that in afghanistan. the cost of the war is huge. but it is declining. the cost of these workers will go down between f-111 and f y 12 by $40 billion. there is every reason to believe that between f y 12 and f y 13, there would be another significant reduction. with the lisbon agreement, the size of our forces left in afghanistan in december of 2014 would be a small fraction of what they are today.

i understand the concerns and we have to think of the long-term interests of the country. >> i would like to ask you about the current situation in syria. do you think imposing sanctions is the appropriate tool? do you think having humanitarian intervention similar to you -- libya could be an option? >> we have certain overarching principles and values that apply everywhere but we have to take the situation in each individual country one at a time. the libyan intervention started

with a resolution from the arab league. it involved a resolution by the gcc and ultimately a u.n. security resolution. i see no appetite for any of that with respect to syria. in terms of sanctions, that is more in the secretary of state's lane but if there is to be some pressure on syria to stop the kind of killing that we have seen, it would have to come to some kind of sanctions like that. >> a bunch of us were in the room when you were asked a short question were ever asked at a congressional hearing whether we were winning in iraq. i like to ask you that some question about afghanistan. imagine progress but fundamentally do you believe we are winning in afghanistan?

>> i have learned a few things in 4.5 years. one of them is to try to stay away from loaded words like winning and losing. what i will say is that i believe we are being successful in implementing the president's strategy. i believe that our military operations are being successful in denying the taliban control populated areas, degrading their capabilities, and improving the capabilities of the afghan national security forces. those were three of the tasks that the president laid out for us in december of 2009. i think we have made -- the other was reversing the momentum of the taliban. i think in all four of those cases we are succeeding. >> centre inhofe of oklahoma as a expressed concern that 800

members of two units as part of the 26 or reassign the last moment. they're supposed to go to afghanistan but now they're going to kuwait to help with iraq. these are trainers that were going to go to afghanistan. why were they reassigned and can you assure the american people that the drawdown has not already begun? >> the recommendation came in from general petraeus and general mattis with respect to their arrival time which was beyond the first of july. they were in final training, headed to a afghanistan. the recommendation came in the in light of the fact that we were going to start withdrawing troops this summer, that we would have to make decisions. they were in a good position for us to make a decision whether they should be diverted or not.

based on the conditions on the ground with respect to where general petraeus was, he, then, made a recommendation to general madison and it was a decision here in the end which diverted these units in a timely way. it was to try to take care of them, not get them headed in one direction and then have to point in another direction. based on the overall plan which was to draw down some number of troops even though that drawdown has not started -- the decision has not been made but certainly with the expectation there would be some truth to that would come out, the decision has not been made and given they would be a part of that. >> the drug and has not started but 800 troops -- the drawdown

has not started a tender troops are being diverted? >> it is pretty straightforward. the president said we will begin drawing down our forces based on -- in july of 2011 based on the conditions on the ground. as general petraeus was looking across afghanistan and beginning to identify different options, it was pretty clear that these two units or units that would probably be on that list3 . we took the decision here as the chairman just said to divert them so that we did not end up putting them someplace and pulling them right back out again. the decision was made here aware of the president's direction of what will begin in july but frankly to look out for the interests of those troops. >> you spent a lot of time yesterday explaining the process by which you will assess the

$400 billion goal. since the goal was announced by the president, you've never been asked if that goal is too big a number on top of the $170 billion in 2016 that you are planning. can you take $400 billion of a reduction and not seriously degrade national security? overall, is that a minor cut? >> i don't as a minor cut. i think it is important to remember -- we did not start this yesterday. the decisions that we took to cap or cut 30 odd programs in april of 2009 essentially took a lot low hanging fruit and some people would say more valuable stuff as well. the total value of those

programs, had they been billed to conclusion, was about $330 billion. some of those cuts, we will have to go back and do other kinds of programs. what of the cuts was the presidential helicopter. we still have to do that. one was a bomber and we have a new bomber program. it is not a net cover hundred $30 billion but it would have been very we then did $178 billion worth of inefficiencies. $100 billion was reinvested. halfway through the fiscal year fiscal11, our budget was cut $20 billion. we have been dealing with these issues for the last several years. the question you ask is the question to be answered by the comprehensive review. if you look at the different options that are available, once you take into account the things

i talked about yesterday, more efficiencies, marginal programs and capabilities, and tackling some of the politically sensitive issues you are left with fore structure. what are the options in terms of getting to that number? we are also mindful that there are numbers out there that are bigger than that. so of them are substantially bigger. i think it is our responsibility to lay before the president and congress what the consequences are of cuts at different levels and what changes have to be made in strategy and what the implications are in terms of capability. that is what we will do. that worker think will be done and a lot of it is well under way. i think it will be done later this summer. we are in a position to inform the final budget decisions and the president was quite clear when we discussed this. he was cleare in his public

announcement thatof a budget decisions would be made with respect to the 400 billion t -- $400 billion after -- until after we complete this review. >> could both of you talk about how destructive the violence has been there to our efforts of counter-terrorism? training has been suspended of the counter terrorist portions. what has that destruction been, and can you talk about the connection between al qaeda in yemen, aqap, et al. >> yemen has been a focus for us because of the al qaeda branch that is their in qap which is deadly.

the group is very focused on the homeland threat to us. we have worked hard to provide the kind of training support that the yemen government has asked of us. at the same time -- develop a relationship with scott to be pretty strong. clearly, with the turmoil that the country is in right now, that training has been impacted and we are watching how this plays out while at the same time still focus very much on al qaeda, on this group of the leaders in the country. i worry about a continuing to grow and become more viral overtime.

i certainly would say that it has gotten in the way of the training with what is going on there. the yemen forces are focused on their country right now. we continue to be committed to that. we're watching very carefully how all this comes out. >> on yemen, can the united states disperse new aid to yemen considering everything going on in the country? on pakistan, have you communicated any warning or will you to islam a bad that reducing the trading mission might have an impact on the amount of military aid the country might provide? >> i provided no warning whatsoever specifically. to pakistan in that regard. we have had discussions recently. i visited there with secretary

clinton where we had open discussions about where we were across a broad range of issues. with respect to yemen, do you mean physically or legally? >> [inaudible] >> there is an aid program that has been interrupted by the current chaos in that country. we will get on the downside of that chaos as to what the next eds will be. >> thank you very much >> that was the last scheduled news conference of robert gates. he stepped down june 30. president obama's choice to replace his cia chief leon panetta. his nomination will be voted on by the full senate on tuesday that will be live on c-span 2.

coming up on c-span, remarks from republican presidential candidate newt gingrich and republican leadership conference last night in new orleans. topics on this morning's "washington journal" include the 2012 presidential campaign and we will talk to the president of amtrak. "washington journal" is live at 7:00 eastern. the national cable and tele- communications association is holding its annual convention this week in chicago. we will show you some of those events this weekend. on saturday, executives from time warner, viacom, cox, and comcast talk about the state of their industry. on sunday, an interview with fcc chairman julius genachowski and the discussion on next year's presidential election with president obama's campaign strategist, david axelrod and former rnc chairman ed

gillespie. coverage of the convention begins saturday at 10:00 a.m. eastern here on c-span. here is presidential candidate newt gingrich at the republican leadership conference last night in new orleans. this is 40 minutes. >> i want to cut through the challenge we have over the next 80 months. i want to ask some of these questions. how many of you think america is currently on the wrong track? raise your hand if you agree. virtually all of you, right? how many of you believe that washington will fight very hard

against to getting back on the right track? think about this. this is the key question about the 2012 campaign. i want to make his case to you. it is very important to defeat president obama but that is not enough. we need to pick up 12 u.s. senate seats -- [applause] and we need to pick up 30-40 seats in the u.s. house -- [applause] and we need to strengthen our position with state legislators and governors and local city councils and county commissions because if we are going to implement the 10th amendment and return power back home, we'd better make sure we have people in office back home who operate in a conservative and fiscally

sound manner in order to make sure that power is not abused back home. we have a big job and i would suggest to you that this may be the most important team election in our lifetime. we have been given an amazing opportunity. we have been given an opportunity to give the american people a choice so clear, a choice so vivid, that we could win a cataclysmic election which would end the 80-year rule of the left in the united states. [applause] as an historian, as a speaker of the house, as a candidate, and what is important is the citizen. this is a center-right country

with a left-wing governing mechanism. if you go as the values, over 90% of the american people believe that students should be allowed to have a moment of silent prayer in school. and yet we have a judge in texas who said recently, a u.s. judge who said if any student at the high school graduation uses the word prayer they could go to jail. the gap between 90% of the american people who think it is perfectly reasonable if a student who voluntarily want to explain that their success came from god and the very nature of freedom should give them the right. i thought that's what free speech was all about here you have a judge who is so anti- american that he is saying he will throw you in jail if you tell the truth about how you feel. my answer to that, frankly, requires the way big majority in

the house and senate. my answer to that judge is the judicial reform act of 18 02. that's the virtue of being and a story. in 1902, thomas jefferson and james madison who knew a fair amount about the constitution, [laughter] probably more than the current supreme court. -- [applause] they passed the judicial reform act of 18 02 which eliminated 18 of the 35 federal judges. think about that. they did not in peaks that are going through some complicated thing. this at your office does not exist, you're not getting paid, go home. [laughter] [applause]

several of those judges tried to file suits and the grounds it was unconstitutional. they went to the judges who were still of us who said to them, " are you crazy? if i accept your suit that will abolish my judgeship." i don't want the news media to get confused -- [laughter] i am not as bold as thomas jefferson and james madison. i am not recommending that we abolish over half of all u.s. judges. >> why not? [applause] >> because -- that is clearly a person who is an activist but may not be ready to be president. [laughter] you have to be reasonable.

i would limit it to the judge from texas who if you read his ruling is so outrageously dictatorial and anti religious he does not understand america and we don't need judges who don't understand america. [applause] in order to create a demonstration effect, i would eliminate the ninth circuit. [applause] by the way, for my friends and the intellectual and news media communities to find this a horrifying thought, i recommend they read the federalist papers by madison, hamilton and jay, the most amazing campaign ever written to explain the constitution so people would vote for it. they said the judicial branch is

the weakest, not the strongest. severs and wrote in a letter that the idea of the supreme court -- jefferson wrote in a letter of some pork that the supreme court being superior would make an oligarchy. we need to reset the judiciary and explain to the dilemmas of the american constitution and prove to them the judges appointed for life cannot be dictators and they cannot threaten our children with jail for saying the word 'prayer.' [no audio] [applause] [applause] the key point i am making here is that you cannot achieve that positive outcome just by winning the presidency. obviously, we want to win the presidency. i want to win the presidency. we want to win it as a team in which we have house and senate candidates who are on the same page going in the same direction and the team arrives in

washington and on january 20, 2013, the team begins to change everything. [applause] how fast can we change things? let me suggest the following -- immediately after the inaugural address, we will take a one-hour break. [laughter] during the one-hour break, we'll go to an office in the capital and on national television we will sign somewhere between 50 and 200 and executive orders effective as of that minute. [applause] now, in a week or two at newt.org we will have a project called on the first day. that project will let any american who wants to submit

what you think would be a good executive order. we will experts review them and people who have been in the bush and reagan white house is right them. about october 1 of next year, we will post the executive orders to be signed on inauguration day. the will be out there in public and available for everyone and they will be a big part of the last 30 days of the campaign. we end up in a debate with president obama and he says he is for that, too, we will say to sign it now. [applause] i don't know tonight what most of the executive orders will be by now with the first four are. the first executive order i will sign eliminates all of the white house guards as of that moment. [applause]

i knew you would get it. [laughter] the second executive order reinstates ronald reagan's mexico city policy that no u.s. taxpayer pays for abortions overseas. [applause] the third executive order reinstates president george w. bush bus constant provision which says that no person, no doctor, nurse, and a pharmacist, no hospital can be forced to perform at a medical procedure against their religious beliefs. [applause] the fourth executive order i will sign says quite simply that

as of that date the united states accepts and recognizes the capital of countries as defined by their government and we will move the u.s. embassy to the capital as defined by that government. the only country in the world that affects is israel. because the u.s. state department has consistently refused to move the american embassy from tel aviv to jerusalem which i believe is an insult to a country which is a democracy that is our ally. [applause] for those of you concerned about the survival of israel, i gave a speech last sunday night which you can find at newt.org which outlines nine major ppolicies in the middle east. there is no moral equivalence between a self-governing rule

all block, a free society, and a terrorist organization that in its evil acts and no american president should force the israelis to negotiate with people who are trying to kill them. [applause] being in new orleans, i think we should talk a little bit about jobs, housing, energy, and the obama depression. it me be quite clear deep -- commend the democratic national chairman who said yesterday that they own the economy. it was more honesty than we have gotten out of the obama white house in three years and she deserves some credit before she is fired by obama. [laughter]

how can the president of the united states say to the country that he is not concerned about a second dip recession? how can he not be concerned when 40 million americans are out of work? how can he not be concerned when one out of every four american families is in a house which is currently worth less than their mortgage? how can he not be concerned when his anti-american energy policy has been driving up the price of gasoline and pouring money outside the united states while killing jobs in louisiana? [applause] he made this a joke where he said that it turned out that shovel-ready printer sort of shell-ready. mr. president, it was not very funny to the 40 million unemployed americans to learn that you did not know what you are doing and your plans did not work. [applause]

we have been here before. jimmy carter made a total mess out of the economy. ronald reagan carried more states in 1980 than franklin delano roosevelt carried in 1932. reagan had a simple phrase -- he said when your brother in law is unemployed, is called a recession. when you are unemployed, it is called a depression. when jimmy carter is unemployed, it is called the recovery o-- it is called a recovery. [applause] some of you might expect to hear this next year with one name change. [laughter] let's talk about how destructive the energy policy is. we have 20% less production in the gulf of mexico today than was projected because his

moratorium and his regulatory policies are anti-american energy and he is killing jobs and louisiana. [applause] -- in louisiana. [applause] is not just killing jobs here, he is forcing americans to send money overseas. 70% of our net deficit in trade is oil. this makes no sense at all. the president goes to brazil. he says to the brazilians -- you will see this as a commercial -- i want to show it to you because i don't want you to think i am making these things up. the president goes to result and he says to the brazilians that i am glad that you are drilling offshore. he says to the brazilians that

he is glad we can guarantee $2 billion for loans for equipment from a george soros-financed company. [boos] and then the most amazing thing. he says to the brazilians, i want us to be your best customer. the about this. this is a guy who has his job exactly backwards. the don't ask the president of the united states going around the world to be a purchasing agent. you want him to be a salesman for american products. [applause] when we get to the general election, one of our themes will be simple -- you like brazilian oil, both for obama, you like american oil, both for us. you like a purchasing agent president? vote for obama. you like a salesman president, both for us. let's make the choice clear.

[applause] by the way, i get criticized in the elite media who are not as fond of me as they could be -- they said that obama is the most successful food stamp president in american history. guess what? obama is the most successful photostat president in american history. i would like to be the most risk -- the most successful paycheck president in american history. [applause] i believe you can go into every neighborhood of every ethnic background in every state in the united states and say to people, would you rather have food stands for your children or paychecks for your children and in virtually every neighborhood they would say it would like their children to have a job and a paycheck and not be dependent on washington for a food stamp.

[applause] i want to suggest something very daring to all of you. if we have the courage to run a campaign based on freedom, if we have the courage to run a campaign that says you should be free to work with your doctor and therefore you and your doctor should worry about your help and we should repeal obama care which has a bureaucrat dictating what your doctor can do. [applause] freedom requires you to be able to work for a living and a paycheck and take care of your family and servitude to the government requires you to depend on washington, d.c. for food stamps and medicaid. go down the list print what i predict to you is that there will be virtually no state in the country which is a lock for obama. we will be able to compete everywhere in america because everywhere in america people will be tired of bad policies

killing jobs, bad policies killing american energy, bad policies crippling housing prices, and we should have the courage as a party to say no neighborhood will be off limits. we will give every american a chance to have a better future by voting for freedom and republican party instead of servitude in the democratic party. [applause] in washington, people seem very confused [laughter] they don't understand what the problems of the country are. the only metropolitan area of the country where housing prices have gone up. people worry about unemployment. they cause your unemployment to make sure they have the money for their housing. this is why this will be an unusual campaign. if we do it right and have a contract with america next

september and 18 campaign and if we are bold and our commitment to better policies and our commitment to explain in principle what is american exception was and why do free markets work and why does the work ethic matter and why is patriotism important and what is a matter you have been in doubt by your creator with certain unalienable rights? this is one of the magic moment in american history. in the next 18 months, because obama will fail in practice and in radicalism, we are in a position where we can say that reason the practice failed is because the radicalism is hopeless. you think that people would have figured out the socialism does not work. as margaret thatcher wants said it is the problem with socialism is you run out of other people's money to spend. [applause] we need to be prepared to go to the country both with principles of freedom, principles of

american and sectionalism, principles of national safety, and with very practical steps of the proposals would grow out of those principles. it is that combination that will enable us to have one of the great decisive elections and in the process to educate two generations of americans who the school systems have failed to educate. [applause] margaret thatcher said you win the argument first and then you win the votes. you need to have an argument. some people in politics find this confusing. i just wrote a new book. the purpose of the book is to explain american exceptionalism. this is central to this campaign. this campaign will be about economics which includes about 50% of health care. it will include american exceptionalism and national

security. that is the heart of the campaign, those three things. let me talk about americans accepti channelsm. obama was at his first year as president if he believes in american exceptionalism. he says he believes americans are exceptional but i'm sure the british think they are exceptional. he did not have a clue what the question was american exceptionalism is not because we're bigger and stronger and smarter. it is about the need magic moment when the founding fathers met at independence hall and wrote a declaration of independence which says in words that alienate academic left with is an alien much of the news media and drives the judge is crazy. it said we hold these truths to be self evident. does the word truth. the didn't say theory or ideology very basic truth. there were trying to divide what

is at the heart of humans governing themselves. they said we are all created equal. that is important. it means the rule law matters. that is why you cannot have centralize power in washington because that becomes the rule of bureaucrats. [applause] then they said -- we are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. this is the core of my argument with barack obama. he is a natural secular european socialists. he believes in big government. he believes in centralized power. he believes he is a politician who knows or -- more than we do and he should help us redesign our laws that letting him and his bureaucrats rule us. it is the opposite of freedom. first of all, this is the only

country in history which says the power comes from god to each one of you personally. we are endowed by [applause] our] -- by our creator or. [applause] our rights are unalienable. this is what the judge in texas should be fired. by what right does a texas just tell an american that if they use the word prayer, they will go to jail? that alienated them from their right of free speech. no judge, no president, no politician, no bureaucrat can come between you and the rights that god gave you. [applause]

then what does it say? among which are life -- that is pretty straightforward. liberty which is what freedom is all about. and notice how it said, the opposite of liberalism, the right to pursue happiness. i want to make two points here. the first is the word happiness. in that year, happiness meant wisdom and verse. it did not mean hedonism and acquisition. [applause] i have written a number of books on this topic. the founding fathers all believe the it was people would remain free of a foolish people would end up in a dictatorship. we have a challenge in this campaign. i believe in the american people enough to believe we can have the most educational serious thoughtful campaign in american history since 1860 and we will have people in united states

given this kind of pain and problems look up and say that this is a discussion they want to be a part of and they want to understand what makes america unique and want to understand how we apply to our generation. that is the heart of the idealism which should be behind a campaign this year, to list everybody in a discussion about what kind of america are wait. we. the second part says the right to pursue happiness. that implies the work ethic. we have to do something. notice what else, there is no right to happiness. it does not provide for a federal department of happiness. [laughter] it does not suggest that we need happiness stands for the under-happy. it does not propose that lawyers

have the right to sue on behalf of the unhappy. [laughter] if you had said to the founding fathers that there was some politicians so arrogant that he was going to walk in here and tell you that i will take from the overly happy and redistributed to the under underly happy -- [applause] they would have said that was a fundamental violation of your rights as giving you by your creator and that person should be fired immediately because they are out of touch with reality. by what right does a politician decide what you are allowed to do? that is the opposite of freedom. i'll talk briefly about policy. this will be a philosophical campaign that will shock the news media. it will be longer than nine-

second sound bites. it will not be filled with attack ads for you don't need to attack obama. all you have to say is look at reality. it attacks you every day. [applause] with a chance to talk with the american people but it has to come down two proposals. one interviewer asked me about my first week in office. i said that if we pick up 12 senate seats and we pick a 30-40 house seats this is what i would do in the first week. bill whole goal is to run the whole campaign so you know what you will do the first weeks. you are not arriving to plan. you are writing to execute because you have already had the conversation and the country has voted and you know what you are doing. [applause]

overview that newt.org will close. we will star with tax policy. this is a country that kills jobs. job killing policies killed jobs. [laughter] i know it is complicated. [laughter] job killing policies do kill jobs. what we know about how to create jobs? these liberals get mystified. i was part of a group in the 1970's with jack kemp and others to develop supply side economics. if you encourage people to prejudge, there will create jobs. ronald reagan campaigned on that in 1980. he had tax cuts, deregulation, an american energy policy and he praised and entrepreneurs and innovators and job creators so they felt good about doing it. [applause]

if you translate seven years of recovery from november of 1982 to the end of his term, that seven-year recovery, translated into the size of our current economy and the size of our current population, it would mean that seven years after we take over, eight years at the outside but he did not pass the tax cut until august but we would try to pass it the fourth week of january after the inaugural. we would create 25 million new jobs. the economy at the end of seven years would be four trillion dollars per year bigger. federal revenues would be of $800 billion per year because so many more people would be at work paying taxes so you have a huge step toward a balanced budget if you just control spending. the sheer momentum of the economy would start to fix everything.

that is a parallel from what really happened in history. that is not an abstract theory. that is what happened. how would you do that? there with me -- this is a big deal -- you have 14 million unemployed, you have housing in a mess, you have an economy spending too much money on your enemies, the present obama model is to borrow from the chinese to pay the brazilians. [laughter] there's not a 16-year-old in the country who could not look at that equation and figure out that that will not work. [laughter] 5 quick tax changes o --ne, make permanent the current tax rates of their attacks increases in 2013. [applause] , go to zero capital gains so everywhere on the planet people shift money to the united states. [applause]

3, go to a 12.5% corporate tax rate. you will bring home from overseas $1 trillion in capital which is currently locked up because we have the highest corporate tax rate in the world. companies will not bring a home because they don't want to give the government 1/3 of the money. what is ironic is that at 35%, general electric hires tax lawyers and pays zero. at 12.5%, there will fire at the lawyers and a tax is [laughter] . [applause] money for the government out of general electric at two 0.5% than obama is getting at 35%. two other tax changes, one hunter% expense and for all equipment so every american worker has the most modern equipment and the world. [applause] i have been in two machine shops

in new hampshire with multimillion-dollar pieces of equipment and when i talk to the owners of the shops about how rapidly they could modernize to pick it right the investor and often when your, you would have an explosion of productivity in the united states. we could take the chinese had on and we would win because our workers would be the most productive in the world. [applause] finally, permanently abolish the death tax which is an anti-work -- [laughter] [applause] [applause] i look forward to debating present obama on this issue because it is straightforward. it is immoral for the government to say that you can work all your life, save all your life, do everything right your entire life, and some politician can take half your money when you die. there is no right for a politician to take away our lifetime work. [applause]

president obama may think it is ok for people to have to visit the undertaker and the irs the same way. i think it is fundamentally wrong. we did permanently repeal it. [applause] so, that is taxes. already also be regulated. the very first week we should repeal the sarbanes oxley bill which kills small business, kills venture-capital. we should repeal the dodd-frank bill which is killing small business. [applause] let me just say that if you are a conservative and i mentioned the phrase dodd-frank build [laughter] and you can't figure out automatically it is probably worth repeating on principle -- [laughter] we should replace the

environmental protection agency with a brand new environmental solutions agency that is fundamentally different. [applause] we should modernize the food and drug administration said that it has the job of being in the laboratory cooperating in order to get new science all the way to the patient as rapidly as possible, not as slow as possible. [applause] a 21st century food and drug administration means better health, lower costs, longer lives, greater independence living, and more american jobs. it is a big deal. we should audit the federal reserve and find out who got our money? [applause] we should reform the federal reserve to take away the power to give money to banks and

return it to the treasury where it can be inspected and looked at in public because no single person should have that level of power in a free society. [applause] in addition, we should amend the law to say to the federal reserve that your job is to protect the value of the dollar. it is the president and the congress that should focus on employment and economic growth. you protect the dollar. [applause] inflation is a terrible tax on the middle-class and on working and saving americans and is profoundly wrong to have your government cheap you by devaluing the dollar. [applause] finally, if you want this economy to grow again and you want to grow rapidly, you need an american energy policy and louisiana is the best case study. [applause]

the obama administration is so anti-american energy, all laws and the bureaucracy and regulatory procedures are so anti-american energy that all around us there is increasing evidence of their effort to strangle the energy supply. shell oil invested $3 billion in illegal develop an off alaska which may be a field as big as the entire gulf of mexico and they gave up because between the environmental protection agency, the courts and the losses, they decided it was a loss. there is currently an effort under way to explore whether or not a desert lizard in western texas is in danger enough to close down the largest on land oilfield in the united states.

if there are enough lizards to be in an area the size of the entire oil field, they cannot be endangered. [laughter] [applause] if the lizards are so scarce they are only in a tiny part of the oilfield, what are we closing the entire oil-field. ? they cannot have it both ways but they hate american energy. we have gone from seven years' supply of natural gas and a growing idea that we would import liquid natural gas from the middle east to discovering guest shale using the methods of drilling and we have all 100 tens of -- one of the 10 year supply of natural gas. the environmental protection as you want to close down the technique. we're down 8,000 feet below the surface and there are bureaucrats in washington who don't know what is happening.

if we had had the modern regulatory attitude in 2000 -- in 1903, the wright brothers would never have been able to fly. you all would have had to drive here but you would not have had a car because ford would not have been allowed to drive a car. you would have come here in a stage coach but horses have an environmental impact. let me close with this comment -- the one thing that struck me tonight and i will write a paper on this -- one of the people last question at the new hampshire debate in which their premise was -- since we are a developed society, we cannot expect to get 5% per year growth. i want to take his head on. we are not developed society. we are at the beginning of a new era. we have an enormous amount of science at us. we have an entire world market to compete in. we have the opportunity to

supply biological breakthroughs for the entire world. why would you think the future is limited unless you or liberal and want to be in charge of sharing the limitations? jimmy carter was gave a speech in which he said we will all have a missile but at least we will be fair and pass out misery's dancer we get an equal amount of misery. ronald reagan came along and said the only reason we are miserable is because of jimmy carter. when we fire him? and go back to being happy? [applause] with your help, we will run the most idea oriented, the most philosophical clear, the most educational, and the most positive campaign in modern american history. we will develop for the american people a clear understanding of why we are americans and what it means to be american and why it would be utterly foolish to give up on the declaration of

independence and the constitution to adopt some weird european socialist bureaucratic model. when we get done, we will sweep the senate. we will sweep the house. we will win the white house and then we will clean out washington. thank you, good luck. [applause] ♪ [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> that was former house speaker newt gingrich in new orleans last night. we will cover the republican leadership conference again today. ♪ >> cspan has launched a new

website for politics and the 2012 presidential race with the latest cspan events from the campaign trail, biorhythm is on the candidates, twitter fees and facebook updates from candidates and political pundits. c-span.org us at/campaign 2012. >> "washington journal" is coming up next and we will take your calls and look at today's news. we will have more coverage from new orleans and the republican leadership. conference this leadership the scheduled speakers include gop presidential candidates michelle bachmann, ron paul, rex santorum, and herman cain. we will have live coverage here on c-span and on cspan radio. coming up this hour, a conversation on the role of unions will play in the 2012 election. service employees