Hon. Newt Gingrich
Speaker of the House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20050

Dear Mr. Speaker:

You are presiding over the death of the Republican Party.

I have been a Republican all my life, have always voted Republican, have always campaigned for Republicans.

When the GOP won both houses of Congress in 1994, I envisioned a renaissance of liberty and prosperity, and an alternative to the politics of greed and entitlement embodied by the Clinton/Gore administration.

But now, three years later, I am a card-carrying member of the Libertarian Party, and will not vote Republican again.

Why? Here’s why:

• I did not vote to put Republicans in power to preside over the "saving" of the criminal and corrupt Social Security and Medicare programs, but to see these programs scaled back or abolished.
• I did not vote to put Republicans in power to raise the minimum wage, but to repeal it.
• I did not vote to put Republicans in power to defeat the Clinton health plan, only to have it followed by the Kennedy-Kassenbaum debacle.
• I did not vote to put Republicans in power to continue our immoral intervention in foreign wars, but to bring the post-Cold War troops home.
• I did not vote to put Republicans in power to support continued Federal welfare, but to lower our taxes.
• I did not vote to put Republicans in power to see the eventual criminalization of tobacco, but to see the FDA stripped of its tyrannical and deadly powers.
• I did not vote to put Republicans in power to whine about censoring the Internet, or to propose the ludicrous flag-burning amendment, but to protect the rights of free speech guaranteed by the Constitution, at all times, by all people.
• I did not vote to put Republicans in power to continue the wasteful continuation of corporate welfare, but to end all such spending.
• I did not vote to put Republicans in power to watch our civil liberties being whittled away by anti-terrorist legislation and "no-knock" drug raids and criminal confiscation of property prior to conviction, but to protect our rights against intrusion by the federal government.
• I did not vote to put Republicans in power to continue the growth, indeed, the running amok, of the federal budget and our crippling debt, but to balance the budget with real spending cuts and the elimination of vast chunks of the federal bureaucracy.

Your current leadership philosophy seems to be a fawning sycophancy towards the President. When you lie down with this particular dog, Mr. Speaker, you get up without any principles. Fear of a lame-duck president and his moribund party will not keep the GOP in power – to the contrary, it is leading to the eventual demise of the Republican party as a political force in this country.

You have turned your back on the principles upon which the Republican Party was founded; indeed, you seem to have divested yourself of all principles whatsoever. You are a ship without a compass, leading the GOP onto the reef.

You have demonstrated that you cannot lead, and you have no desire to follow. Your preoccupation with keeping control of the House in the face of your party’s pending collapse and the growing unease of Republican members with your leadership can only lead to disaster.

As Cromwell said to Parliament: "You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing . . . In the name of God, go!"

Scott P. Cook