Gingrich on Burden of Health Care Overhaul

This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," July 16, 2009. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

SEAN HANNITY, HOST: All right. Breaking news tonight this from just a few hours ago. Joe Biden has a message for the American people, and it is this. We need to spend money to keep from going bankrupt. Well, you heard it right. Take a look for yourself.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Now people say — when I say that people look at me and say what are you talking about, Joe? You're telling me we've got to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt? The answer is yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Can't you just see the president wincing? Now meanwhile on Capitol Hill the House and Senate health care bills are taking shape, and it looks like they're taking a cue from Joe Biden. We're finally getting an idea of what those bills are going to cost you in taxes.

• Video: Watch Sean's interview

Now let's take a look. A single New Yorker making $80,000 a year with no health insurance would pay, get this, a $2,000 penalty for not having health care, over $21,000 in federal and state income taxes and over $5,000 in other taxes. A total of just about 36 percent of total income.

Now continuing up the pay scale, a $235,000 income earner would pay nearly $80,000 of their income to the federal government, almost $20,000 to the state, and an additional $2,850 as a result of the Democrats' new health care tax, so in total over 40 percent of their income confiscated by the government.

And then finally there's the married couple with a combined income of $1.5 million, now they're going to fork over a whopping $580,000 in federal and state income taxes and an additional $81,000 thanks to the brand-new Obama 5.4 percent health care tax. Now that's almost 57 percent of their income that goes to Uncle Sam.

Now this is taking redistribution of wealth to a whole entire new level.

And here to respond, former speaker of the House, FOX News contributor, author of "Real Change," now available in paperback, Newt Gingrich is with us.

Mr. Speaker, good to see you.

NEWT GINGRICH, FORMER SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: Good to be with you.

HANNITY: All right. So.

GINGRICH: You know, you just showed the core contradiction. Here is the vice president saying spend more, and here you are proving that they're going to take away your money before you can spend it, and that's why the Federal Reserve is warning we may have no net new jobs for the next five years because if you have this size tax increase, you're not going to get the spending and the investing to create new jobs.

HANNITY: Well, the contradictory messages is, because Joe Biden said well, we misread the economy, everybody guessed wrong. Now he's saying, and I'm trying to figure this one out, he said, yes, what I'm saying is — you're telling me we have to spend money to keep from going bankrupt, and then he's out there saying well, everywhere I go I see workers are rehired, factories are reopen, cops are on the streets, teachers are in the classrooms.

Does that sound coherent to you?

GINGRICH: Well, first of all, what he's saying over and over again is that he keeps citing government employees. He apparently is not visiting small businesses. He's not out talking to the firm that's on the verge of going broke. He's not talking to the people who are going to get hit by those tax increases.

I talked to a business leader today who has said to me that virtually everybody he knows is in a state of shock, that they can't believe how bad these policies are and that as a result he thinks that investment and creation of new jobs in this country is virtually going to come to a halt because people who have resources are so frightened of what this government's going to do to take it away from them.

HANNITY: All right. Now we just laid out at the start of this show an outline varying incomes of people and the impact that this Obama health care tax is going to have, and it's very significant from people all across every income spectrum here.

I think if you look at the numbers it's going to destroy, for example, New York's economy, but it's worse than that. The Tax Foundation did a study, Mr. Speaker, 39 states would exceed 50 percent of people's income going to pay for taxes.

How does that impact the economy? What will that do to the economy with those rates that high?

GINGRICH: Well, you know, Matt Towery, of Inside Advantage, did a survey last night on these questions, and very interestingly, he said to people what do you think businesses will do when they get hit with this kind of a tax?

A third of them said they're going to lay people off. Another 27 percent said they're going to cut salaries. So I think people are looking at this kind of thing not just in terms of the direct tax they're going to pay, but they're looking at what it's going to do to their jobs, what it's going to do to the businesses around them, and I think that the combination of the giant energy tax of two weeks ago and this giant health tax which is even bigger than the energy tax really has people shaking about where the future of the economy is going to be.

HANNITY: Actually, if you look at the bill, "Investors Business Daily" had a great piece today, and under the Orwellian headline, protecting the choices to keep current coverage, they actually go into very specific detail, and what they put in here, if an individual, for example, health insurer, if you don't enroll the individual in such coverage in the first effective date of coverage, if it's on or after the first day of the year this legislation becomes law, you cannot go into a private plan.

Does that eliminate private insurance and competition?

GINGRICH: Well, the (INAUDIBLE) Associates which is a very respected technical firm estimated that 131 million Americans would lose their health insurance under this plan and would be forced into government plans. 131 million, virtually half the people who are currently insured in this country.

HANNITY: Yes. Well, the CBO which had scored the initial plan here — but anyway, they met with Republicans and met with conference leaders today, and one of the things that Elmendorf from the CBO said, he said if this legislation that has been reported, we don't see the changes that would be necessary to reduce the trajectory of federal health spending by any significant amount, then they go on to say that on the contrary, the legislation significantly expands the federal responsibility for health care costs.

They don't know how much it's going to cost, they said, to conferees today. They don't know where the money is going to come from, and they don't think, and they're saying they don't think it's going to have the predicted results.

So Obama government care. What does this do to the economy?

GINGRICH: Well, you know, the Congressional Budget Office, first of all, when they scored the plan at $1 trillion had to come back and admit they didn't have the Medicare part of it, they didn't have the Medicaid part, a number of other parts.

The estimate now is that it's $1.5 trillion in total costs because the liberals had frankly hidden parts of it from the Congressional Budget Office. Second I believe it was a conversation on the record today with Senator Conrad, the budget chairman of the Senate, where he said is there any point in this bill where you start seeing the cost of health care going down, and the budget director said no, not anyplace, and I understand late today that Senator Conrad came out against the House bill, so now you have the Democratic chairman of the budget committee in the Senate saying he's actively opposed to the liberal bill that Henry Waxman and others developed in the House.

HANNITY: All right. For people at home, because now people are beginning to get support for this, there's a Zogby Poll showing that support for this is slipping and slipping dramatically. To make it as simple as I can, how dangerous is the proposal by Obama for government-run health care? How dangerous do you view this for the country?

GINGRICH: Well, I think that this could be one of the things which both permanently puts power in Washington, takes control over your life and gives it to a bureaucrat who can ration what kind of care you get, and so weakens the economy with massive taxes that we don't get any kind of real economic growth for the rest of this decade into say 2020.

So I would hope that everyone watching us tonight would e-mail every friend they have on their personal e-mail list and urge them to call their member of Congress. It's very encouraging. The Congressman Ross, Democrat of Arkansas, is leading an effort to stop the bill. There are a number of Democrats now in rebellion against this big spending liberal bill, and if enough people call them, we may well be able to beat it in the House.

HANNITY: You think it can be beaten in the House? And especially because they're trying...

GINGRICH: Absolutely.

HANNITY: They're to get this done in the next two weeks. These two weeks are critical.

GINGRICH: I think it could — I think in the next two weeks, if enough people call it will be defeated.

HANNITY: All right. Mr. Speaker, thank you as always for being with us. Appreciate it.

GINGRICH: Good to be with you.

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