Newt's Job Summit Goes Outside the Beltway

Written by Tim Mak on Thursday December 3, 2009

While President Obama’s jobs summit has been a beltway affair, attended by Fortune 500 CEOs, Nobel Prize Winners in Economics and union leaders, Newt Gingrich has been holding a series of rival summits in the towns hit hardest by America's struggling economy.

Timed to coincide with President Obama’s jobs summit, Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich held a counter-summit in Cincinnati, Ohio yesterday, to be followed by another forum in Jackson, Mississippi today.

In Cincinnati, Gingrich opened his first “Real Jobs Summit” forum with remarks on his "Jobs First Plan", the centerpiece of which is a two year, fifty-percent payroll tax holiday, to be paid for by unspent TARP and stimulus funds.

While President Obama’s beltway summit is exclusive to Fortune 500 CEOs, Nobel Prize Winners in Economics and union leaders, Newt Gingrich’s events are located in some of the areas hit hardest by America’s struggling economy and are open to anyone who wishes to attend. Ohio, where Gingrich’s first town hall was held, currently has a state-wide unemployment rate of ten percent.

In further contrast to President Obama’s more formal summit, Speaker Gingrich’s events have been designed to resemble town halls. After his remarks, Speaker Gingrich opened the floor to the over five hundred attendees who gathered to discuss the flailing American economy.

“We’re designed as a grassroots organization... the process is always one of listening. [Our organization] isn’t about going out and pushing something that everyone has to listen to us about. It’s not top-down,” said Vince Haley, Vice-President for Policy of American Solutions, where Gingrich is the general chairman.

Dan Kotman, a Gingrich spokesman, told FrumForum that they expect more than five hundred people at their Jackson, Mississippi event tonight, where Mr. Gingrich will be joined by Lt. Governor Phil Bryant.

Kotman also told FF that Gingrich and American Solutions are working on expanding the series of Jobs Summits, with more locations to be announced in the New Year.

If you want to catch Newt Gingrich’s ‘real job summit’ tonight in Jackson, Mississippi, it will be streamed live here from 5-7PM EST.

Category: News