Newt Gingrich: “I brought in an official congressional ice bucket, because I thought it was the perfect symbol of what we are trying to…”

“I brought in an official congressional ice bucket, because I thought it was the perfect symbol of what we are trying to do and how it sometimes gets misrepresented. When we became a majority for the first time in 40 years, we were trying, frankly, to pinch a few pennies to save some money and to be able to provide tax relief. As we looked around at things that we might not need to be doing, we discovered that ice buckets were being delivered every morning to every office. We were under the impression that refrigerators have now been invented and were available, and in fact it turned out every office had refrigerators and virtually every staff member knew how to get ice out of the refrigerator. By eliminating the delivery of ice, we save $400,000 a year. In terms of being a commonsense Congress, I just think this ice bucket tells the story about as well as anything we have done. For years and years, long after refrigerators became common, ice was being delivered. The Washington bureaucracy just kept doing whatever it was doing, even if it made no sense.”