Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich tangled over whether Gingrich took money to lobby members of Congress to support Medicare Part D.
“We have Congressmen who say you lobbied them with regard to Medicare Part D,” Romney said, prompting an indignant reply from Newt, who said “Romney “jumped a long way over here, friend.”
“I have always publicly favored a stronger Medicare program,” Gingrich said.“I wrote a book in 2002 called Saving Lives And Saving Money…I’ll say this in Florida. I’m proud that I publicly advocated Medicare Part D. It saved lives. It’s run on a free enterprise model, includes health savings accounts and includes Medicare alternatives which gave people choices.”
Gingrich added that “It is not correct to describe public citizenship having public advocacy as lobbying. Every citizen has the right to do it.”
But Romney said that Gingrich, by accepting money from health care companies at his various companies, crossed the line.
“Here’s why it’s a problem,” Romney said. “If you’re getting paid by health companies. If your entities are getting paid by health companies that could benefit from a piece of legislation and you then meet with republican congressmen and encourage them to support the legislation you can call it whatever you’d like. I call it influence peddling. It is not right. It is not right. You have a conflict. You are being paid by companies at the same time you’re encouraging people to pass legislation which is in their favor.”
