Newt Gingrich told an overflow crowd Wednesday in south Reno that he would bring sweeping change to Washington, D.C., and that his opponents can't.

“One of the things I can bring that Governor (Mitt) Romney cannot is a deep understanding of how to change Washington quickly,” the Republican presidential candidate said.

Gingrich, former House speaker, said this election is a two-part process for Republicans.

“All of us want to defeat Barack Obama,” he said. “But we have a real debate starting in our party about what the best way to defeat Obama is and whether we also need to fix Congress and the judiciary. This is about the future of the Republican Party.”

Although the “meet and greet” was called on short notice, more than 200 packed into a small bar, Great Basin Brewing Company, while another 100 or so listened through speakers outside.

Gingrich said that on his first day in office, he would authorize construction of the Keystone pipeline from central Canada south to Houston, calling President Obama's blocking it “an amazingly stupid decision.” Gingrich said the pipeline project would create thousands of jobs and bring oil to the United States instead of building a pipeline across Canada to Vancouver, where it would likely be sold to China instead.

“People say, ‘How fast can things turn around?'” he said. “Let me make a prediction: Late on election night.”

He said, however, that much of what he wants to do requires Republican control of Congress — which, in the Senate, means at least 60 GOP votes.

He said he would call for elimination of the capital gains tax and 100 percent depreciation in the first year on all new equipment purchased by manufacturers.

“We have got to get this country back to being the best manufacturing country in the world,” Gingrich said.

He said he would modernize the unemployment insurance system to require people to sign up for business or jobs training to get payments.

“Never again should we pay somebody for 99 weeks for doing nothing,” he said.

Asked later whether that wasn't an insult in Nevada, with the nation's highest unemployment rate, Gingrich said, “I would say they'd be much better off if they had a 99-week training program.”

He called for a flat 12 percent corporate tax rate, adding that when questioned about that by corporate officials, he said at least General Electric would be paying taxes.

He called for a 15 percent flat tax.

“I want to create a 15 percent flat tax so all of you can pay at Romney's rate,” he said, referring to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who leads Gingrich in the race for the Republican nomination.

He said he has been questioned about how he would balance the nation's budget with, potentially, less tax revenue.

“I want to shrink government to meet the revenues, not raise revenues to catch the government,” he said.

He said he would open more federal land to mining to help the economy and abolish the estate tax permanently.

All those policies, he said, are designed to get American back to work, which he said is the best way to permanently fix the economy.

He said the federal Food and Drug Administration needs to be modernized “to accelerate getting new treatments to the patient instead of blocking it.”

While Romney — who won Nevada in the 2008 election cycle — has money and an organization in Nevada, he says he can win here.

Gingrich said that contrary to what has been reported, he wasn't disappointed with his showing in Tuesday's Florida primary, in which Romney beat him by 15 percentage points.

“Considering we were outspent five-to-one, I was very pleased,” Gingrich said.

He said he now has about 160,000 donors online, 97 percent of whom have given less than $250.

“We're going to pit people power against money power in this campaign,” he said.

From Reno, Gingrich left for a series of events and fundraisers in Las Vegas.