Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on January 11, 1985, uploaded to YouTube on November 11, 2011.

Guests: Newt Gingrich and Bill Green

Summary:

Mr. Gingrich was already a leader of the conservative wing of the GOP, and Mr. Green was prominent among the remnant of “Rockefeller Republicans.” Ronald Reagan having just become, barring the repeal of the 22nd Amendment, a lame duck, Mr. Buckley asks his guests to focus on “the future of the Republican Party post Reagan.” They do so more in terms of programs and philosophy than of personalities, in a crisp exchange. Mr. Green, for example, defends the Federal Government’s public-housing program: when it was begun “fully half of the housing in this country either lacked indoor plumbing or was so run down it was a real threat to the life and health of the people… Now, as we’ve gotten to the point where the housing in this country is much better, a much better case can be made for something like the housing voucher …” Mr. Gingrich, on the other hand, sees modern liberalism as still “find[ing] it very hard to believe that average people can do anything for themselves, and so they have a tendency to provide more and more professional help, which somehow doesn’t help you.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDhP4IDbdKE

Online:
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