Gingrich: Congress should return next week, but for work, not fighting

{mosads}First, Gingrich said Congress needs a new rule that only allows the House and Senate to raise issues they agree on from Monday through Wednesday. He said this would help both parties find things they agree on and get them back into the habit of working together again.

Secondly, he said Congress should not rely on the new 12-member “supercommittee” to find deficit-reduction ideas, but should get to work finding these savings through committee and subcommittee work.

“Starting next week, actually have every member doing their job, track every member and every month find savings, and have as your goal pre-empting the committee of 12 by finding enough savings before Thanksgiving that you don’t need them,” he said. “Then you can have intelligent savings.”

Thirdly, he said there are several things Congress can do now to help restore the U.S. economy, such as working in a bipartisan way to open up drilling in Alaska and elsewhere, and repealing the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill. He said these sorts of steps are needed to help bring vitality back to the economy, which has been sorely lacking and makes it hard to feel comfortable about the near-term future of the United States.

“I tell you, as an historian I’m not comfortable at all,” he said. “When you bounce along at 9 percent unemployment, you have a grave risk you could slide down rather than grow up, because there’s no drive in this system right now.”

Gingrich made a point of not talking about what he would do as president in 2013, saying American needs to work together now to fix these urgent problems.

“As far as I’m concerned, I want to be a citizen this summer, helping my country get back to work, helping my country solve its problems,” he said. “We got plenty of time to run for president later.”