Newt Gingrich lobbied to increase the government’s role in the economy, and he dismisses criticism of him as “socialist.”
USA Today reports:
“You start with people with a socialist bias that you shouldn’t earn money,” the former House speaker tells USA TODAY. If you do, he says, “you’re automatically suspicious of having done something bad.” He promises to respond “cheerfully” to inquiries and predicts reporters will move on within weeks.
This defense would make some sense if folks were criticizing Mitt Romney’s wealth. Even Gingrich could use this defense if folks were attacking him for his speaking fees or book deals. And if Gingrich were lobbying against taxes, against regulation, and against subsidies, maybe criticism of his lobbying would be rooted in “a socialist bias.”
But Gingrich is being whacked for being a paid lobbyist for housing subsidies, prescription-drug subsidies, and ethanol subsidies. In other words, his critics are coming from a free-market bias.
That is, unless you define the free market and capitalism as simply making money.
