At a recent John Locke Foundation event, Newt Gingrich had the following to say:

Here’s my proposition for Sen. Edwards. I did an event with him recently in Los Angeles, and he talked about the passion he has to do something about poverty. And I think it’s very helpful and very noble that he has picked a topic that should matter to every American — both morally and in terms of our competing in the world.

But my proposition is very straight-forward. We know what works on the planet. We know that the work ethic works. We know that private property works. We know that the rule of law and independent judges work. We know that lower taxes — so people have more money in their own pocket, so they have a greater incentive to be creative and to work hard and to be entrepreneurs — works.

. . .

And so I would start by suggesting to Sen. Edwards that I agree with his concern — but that we have a profound difference about how the world works. My solution to poverty in America is simple and will sound like Reagan — which means the Left will ridicule it. And that is, I would like to see everyone who is currently poor become successful so they rose to middle-class standards, so there was nobody left who was poor because everybody was successful. (Applause)

The Left would like to transfer wealth to them in their poverty so they would make poverty more comfortable. That is exactly wrong. It’s morally wrong.

…

I think we’d have a lot of fun if Sen. Edwards would be willing to have a dialogue about whether conservative principles applied to saving the poor work better than liberal bureaucracies that clearly today are failing the poor. And that might be a very creative conversation that moves America a little further down the road toward genuinely helping people who currently can’t pursue happiness very well.

Edwards has been pushing to raise the miminum wage to $7.50. Dean recently declared the economic principles that show raising the minimum wage hurts jobs and hurts low-skilled labor as “mumbo jumbo”. It’s obvious the Democrats want to turn the minimum wage into an election year issue, falling back to their old tactics of class warfare.

Not surprisingly, Edwards wants no part of Gingrich and his reasoned positions.

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