Christie undermines Republican efforts to cut federal spending
By Seth Grossman, Political Columnist
?Gov. Chris Christie?s approval rating has increased to the highest score ever measured for a New Jersey governor. According to a Quinnipiac University survey of registered voters released Tuesday, 72 percent approved of Christie?s job performance, up from 56 percent last month.?
— Wall Street Journal, Nov. 30, 2012
?You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”
— Abraham Lincoln, 1856
Last week Christie announced that he was running for re-election as governor. Most of the 42-member Republican State Committee then endorsed him.
The same political ?experts? who previously warned that only ?moderate? Mitt Romney could lead Republicans to victory against Democrat Obama this year are now warning that only a Republican like Chris Christie can win in 2016.
So what exactly did Christie do in New Jersey during the past three years to make him such a popular governor and presidential role model?
The short answer is that Christie lied about almost everything ? just like Democratic President Obama. And the lazy, biased and dumbed-down TV networks and daily newspapers we have today let both of them get away with it.
Christie lied when he said he cut the state budget by $11 billion and brought state taxes under control. He did the opposite. Democratic former Gov. Corzine?s last 2009 budget for state government was $28.8 billion (after deducting the billion dollars of Obama?s one-time ?stimulus?). Christie?s first budget for 2010 was a half billion higher at $29.3 billion. But Christie also added billions to property tax bills by cutting more than a billion dollars of state rebates to homeowners, local towns and school districts. He also stiffed the state pension funds by about $3 billion. And he forced electric rate hikes for ?green energy? and then spent that money on state government.
And Christie guaranteed future tax hikes by spending $200 million of previously borrowed funds, and pushing for $750 million more in debt for expensive union-built construction at state colleges.
Christie lied when he said his work with Democrats fixed the state pension system. If you do the arithmetic, you quickly see that Christie?s ?reform? did nothing but grab more money from younger teachers and government employees so the fund won?t go broke for a few more years after a few more baby-boomers retire.
Christie lied when he bragged that his ?business friendly? government gave the economy a ?Jersey comeback.? The truth is that Christie put anti-business, forced-union-monopoly and environmental extremists into key positions. They, together with big hikes in tolls, taxes, insurance and electric bills, made doing business in New Jersey so bad that even Ocean Spray Cranberry had to leave.
In the ?pay to play? world of Republican Christie and the Democrats he deals with, ?business friendly? means giving special permits, money and tax breaks to a handful of insiders (like the Revel Casino and companies that assemble Chinese solar panels and expensive windmills in the ocean). But even they fail as soon as the taxpayer giveaways run out.
In three years, Gov. Christie gave New Jersey nothing but higher taxes, electric bills, tolls and debt, and lower income, wealth and opportunity.
But like Julius Caesar, Napoleon, Stalin, Hitler, Castro, Hugo Chavez and every other popular dictator in history, Christie lied even more to build up a crisis, and then used it to distract from his failures.
Falsely broadcasting to the world that the casinos were flooded and that the Atlantic City boardwalk was destroyed was very bad for business. So was needlessly keeping thousands of people away from their homes and work for days after the storm.
If the governor made it clear that Atlantic City was not damaged, and if he let and encouraged residents and business owners go back to their homes and jobs the day after the storm, he would have drastically cut losses from mold damage, looting, government overtime, etc., as well as lost business, wages and tax collections.
But by boosting the losses to $30 billion, and helping the media hype a bad storm (but one we get every 25 years) into a ?superstorm,? Christie can now blame it for all his failures during the past three years. And the national media will cheer him as he undermines the efforts of other Republicans to cut federal spending and end the trillion dollar a year deficits that are killing the national economy.
(Reprinted from the December 5, 2012 Current-Gazette Newspapers of Atlantic and Cape May Counties, http://www.shorenewstoday.com/snt/news/index.php/politics/32515-christie-undermines-republican-efforts-to-cut-federal-spending.html)
Somers Point attorney Seth Grossman appears on 92.1FM 8-9 a.m. Saturday. For information see www.libertyandprosperity.org, email sethgrossman49@gmail.com or call (609) 927-7333. Breakfast discussions are held 9:30-10:30 a.m. every Saturday at the Shore Diner on Fire and Tilton roads in Egg Harbor Township.
(Image Source – http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2012/10/31/obama-and-christie-4c7350e0d9123072cdad6f15e485c08b9c5799f2-s6-c10.jpg)