Last November, voters in New Jersey and Virginia tried to send a message to President Obama by electing Republican governors in the only gubernatorial elections held in 2009. But while conservatives were excited about Virginia's Bob McDonnell, they were less enthusiastic about New Jersey's Chris Christie.
Christie had been largely viewed as the more moderate candidate in the primary, in which he defeated conservative Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan. What is more, while the Republican base was delighted to witness the defeat of Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine, conservatives were skeptical that Christie could make much of a difference in New Jersey.
Just a few short months later, however, Chris Christie has become an emerging conservative hero, mostly by standing up for fiscal sanity in the Garden State. Almost immediately upon taking office, he passed pension and benefits reform. That meant public workers must contribute toward their own health care and it also created a formula for determining the pensions for newly hired employees. He also signed an executive order on transparency, forcing government agencies to post expenditures online with a search engine attached.
It's starting to earn him national attention. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, William McGurn noted, "If he is to survive the headlines about budget cuts and pull New Jersey back to prosperity, Mr. Christie knows he needs to put the hard choices before the state's citizens, and to speak to them as adults. He's doing just that."
And at a "Newsmaker Breakfast" sponsored by The American Spectator and Americans for Tax Reform last week, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich said, "Christie is actually trying to fundamentally change New Jersey..." In a world where politicians are rewarded for taking the easy road, the portly and rumpled governor of New Jersey has become a rare commodity – an elected official willing to make hard decisions, despite the fact that he knows it will cost him politically.
Christie has been in office only a few months, but his hard-line on cutting New Jersey's unwieldy $10.7 billion budget deficit has already taken its toll on his polling numbers. In just a few months, his approval ratings have plummeted. Local officials and Democrats are angry that he wants to cut spending, and that he won't let them raise taxes. At the same time, Christie may be doing exactly what is needed to save his state from further economic calamity. Perhaps this is what we should have expected from a man with the moxie to tell Governor Corzine, "man up and say I'm fat."
Despite the criticism, Christie has stayed the course, which for him means addressing New Jersey's devastated state finances by dramatically cutting spending. Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, recalls that the last New Jersey Republican governor, Christine Todd Whitman, "started to fight with the unions and there was screaming and blood on the floor, and she kind of backed down." In terms of how Christie is doing, Norquist quips, "Christie 2.0 is doing better than Christie 1.0."
But it's not easy. Chris Christie's bold action on the budget reflects the sad realities facing the state. For his troubles, Christie has been accused of championing a "slash-and-burn budget." Cutting spending is a popular idea right up until the time a governor actually trims a specific program. At that point, whoever's ox has been gored tugs on the heartstrings of the public and the media by portraying the spending cutter as mean-spirited. Just to give you an idea of how it works, an ad funded by the New Jersey Education Association that is running in the state says Christie is "attacking teachers, school bus drivers and lunch ladies,"
It's political smears like that one that petrify politicians into kicking fiscal problems down the road – and induce governors and legislatures (and presidents and congresses) to ignore painful, but necessary fixes to their own economies. the upshot is that spending almost never gets cut, and taxes continue to rise to cover it. High taxes exacerbate the effects of a sour economy, and a vicious cycle ensues.
For this reason, Chris Christie's political courage is impressive. "How it happens is, you raise spending out of control," Christie explained on Morning Joe. "Over the last twenty years, spending has averaged 16 percent increase a year on the state level ... and you raise taxes 115 times in the last eight years, so you kill your revenue base. You do the two of them, it's a double-whammy..."
But whether Christie can turn New Jersey around or not, his willingness to make bold decisions – and stand firm on them -- may just help Republicans who are running in 2010 overcome the public's skepticism as to whether, once in office, they really will cut spending and not raise taxes. It very well may be that Christie's efforts in New Jersey will send a signal to Republican voters that help is on the way, and that it's not just politics as usual.
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3 comments:
As previously noted, I support what Christie is doing. Further - I have said that many states, particularly in the Rust Belt, must cut taxes and rationalize their budgets. Wholesale - not piecemeal - reform is needed.
The problems of our federal government are not the same, nor will they be as easily addressed. I have challenged each of the right wing bloggers to specify what cuts they would make and they offer only platitudes. I asked my Socratic question to demonstrate the nature of the problem. Unfortunately, I have been met with stubborn ignorance.
We have a fundamental and structural imbalance in spending and receipts. If we resolve this purely through spending cuts, we will need to drop - not merely cut - very popular entitlement programs. That simply is not going to happen nor should it. The reasonable and logical alternative is to raise revenues and severely reduce the growth of spending, including entitlements. Yes - I mean gradually raising the SS/Medicare age, cutting discretionary and defense spending, and incorporating a VAT tax to bring in significant new revenue. Basically - we need the 1993 Budget Bill on steroids.
We need to balance the budget and begin paying down debt in the next 4 - 6 years. Very aggressive, yes, but I don't think we really have a choice. Renewed global growth will put significant pressure on interest rates and the patience of bond markets will soon be ancient history.
Honestly, where do you buy your crack?
The Democrats, you know your side, prohibits any spending reductions.
You ignore the spending that the current administration has started and continues to accelerate.
You also, like a billion times, ignore my, yes, my specific budget recommendation, and yes, other bloggers might not know, but I do.
How can you logically say that the states must do what the federal government cannot?
Crack, I say, Crack.
Doc -
The deficit is $1.4T, roughly the amount that GWB handed to Obama. Facts is facts. Please identify the spending you would cut specifically. How much would you cut and from what departments? You have never done that, which would require 1> looking at the budget and 2> having a clue as to the implications of said spending cuts. So - lets see your numbers. Hold the obvious rhetorical bluster.
My side passed the 1993 Budget Bill without a single Republican vote. It was the blueprint for the surpluses that soon followed. When Democratic power vanished, so did the surpluses.
If you would ever look at the federal budget, you would see the difference with the states. If you would crack open a book you would see that billions are spent on transfer payments at the federal level (SS) as well as Medicare and Medicaid - two programs with smaller relative price tags than private industry. The state's costs are far more bloated by administration of services - bureaucracy - and pension obligations promised over the past sixty years. Essentially, the state's budgets are largely discretionary, where the federal is mostly entitlements, interest & defense.
A thoughtful person can't simply say "Ugh, taxes bad, against them always" and "State budgets just the same as federal." There is a good deal of disparity between various states regarding relative income and spending. There are models that can be followed. Comparing our federal government to other nations, you will find that our spending is roughly in line, while our taxes a very low. If the other western industrialized governments all had lower taxes, you would have a great point. Of course, the opposite is true.
Again, I say, crack open a book!
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