| Gov Christie calls S-L columnist thin-skinned for inquiring about his 'confrontational tone' |
Welfare State Nightmares.
The quietly spectacular story in Trenton is that the burly and handsome Chris Christie has taken charge not only of the message but also of the stage with his "blunt, honest, direct" talk and his unapologetic haste to change a failed state. New Jersey has the same mound of debt and obligations to state unions as California and other welfare state nightmares. And on a per capita basis, New Jersey is likely worse than California, which is a stunning comparison. Chris Christie arrived with a wit and a mission to eliminate the deficit and balance the state revenues with the state obligations. This means reducing the workforce, backing down the school districts, and soon enough reducing the tax load on the citizens. The Democrats long in command of Trenton do not celebrate Chris Christie, and they are busy at the task of driving down his approval rating and mocking him as rude. See above for how to be a governor in the 21st century. "To govern not to get re-elected."
The GOP in Search of Talent.
What we are watching in Trenton is the creation of a phenomenon, a Republican governor who is unafraid of the Democrats in Washington and the Statehouse and the electorate. The GOP is interviewing Pawlenty, Romney, Palin, Daniels. What is missing in this pleasant chorus line is a muscleman who can declare, "Win or lose, here I am ..." and mean it. Is it possible that a Jersey guy can get on the Met stage and outsing POTUS? Sure. Watching Christie. The more difficult the Dems and the media make it for him, the more he has to gain. Boom Chris Christie? Early yet, but let us look closely right up until fall 2011.
Chritie 2012
I was born in Red Bank NJ, went to Red Bank Regional HS, returned to NJ 3 different times to live in Somerset County (property taxes on a 3000 ft house $14000/yr) and Ocean County twice. It's one of the most delightful places I've ever been in my life. I miss it horribly, especially after I go back to visit my parents and friends. But I can't live there any more. While it looks the same, the kooks rule the day. The taxpayers work for the state employees and the teachers, not the other way around. God help you if you don't pay your taxes. Well employed people who can leave the state are running for the exits. Pretty soon the state's entire population will consist of state and local employees (a cop who's been on the job for 5 years typically makes $100k/yr, and the teachers to this day pay NOTHING for their gold plated health care plans) and indigent illegal immigrants. How exactly that's a sustainable economic model for growth I have no idea. It pains me to watch, but watch I do from the relative safety of the Eastern Shore of MD, which is delightfully rural, although the Dems in Annapolis seem to be trying their hardest to imitate, of all things, New Jersey! At least in MD the legislature is part time, so we're safe 9 months of the year. And we still have sales tax free shopping across the border in DE.
I grew up and lived on Long Island most of my life until 7 years ago when I moved to Iowa. I can't afford to move back if I wanted to, so it is bitter sweet at best.
What I see in Christie we have not seen in the GOP since Giuliani in 1993 and TR a hell of a long time before that. Having sand counts for something and in this day of effete politicians on both sides, it is refreshing to see someone, a la Rocky Balboa, step in the ring and say I am! It's more than refreshing, it's about time.
JB:
Pawlenty doesn't have the stones, and Romney found out how unpopular he is with Tea Party people when he supported Bennett. Palin is ramping up, building her base for something big in 2012. I refuse to believe that the extension of her 15 minutes will be wasted by her and that she would allow herself to be a mere cheerleader. She's gotten a taste and she likes it. Can you imagine the Tea Party/GOP bulldozer of Palin/Christie? Holy smokes, what out. The Effete Obama wouldn't be able to bow out of that one. :)
christie in his first week in office said the first grown-up thing i have heard from a pol in my memory. rough quote:
"There are many good things we could do. We can't do all of them."
It’s been a long time since I’ve felt compelled to say something good about any U.S. politician. Gov. Chris Christie certainly has been saying all the right things, which shows that he understands the problems facing New Jersey. Our state has been the butt of unkind jokes ever since I can remember. The political corruption here has become legendary. And in our current anti-corporate, anti-industrial, no-growth pro- environmental climate, people have been taking liberties to trash the state for everything from our highway system (“Which exit do you live off of?”) to the industrial haze that on rare occasions clouds the sky as one approaches New York City from the Meadowlands.
In truth, it all amounts to a bad rap. While the corruption has been real – like the gusher in the Gulf - New Jersey is a beautiful state. Its beaches are for the most part pristine and I’ll always remember our camping trips to the wooded hills of Sussex County where lakes abound along with the activities these engender. Our quiet – admittedly artificial – suburban landscapes are teeming with wildlife. Barely 25 miles from Manhattan we are proud to host deer, wild turkey, bear, fox, raccoon, fisher cat, badger, opossum and many other species too numerous to mention.
But, best of all, the people of New Jersey are a kind and generous lot. They are self-effacing. They bear all the insults with a dignity unmatched. They have suffered mightily under the burdens of usurious taxation. It’s only lately that they’ve noticed that the trains also no longer run on time.
New Jersey is routinely mentioned among the states facing severe fiscal problems. Successive Democrat and pseudo-Republican governors - egged on by unions, environmentalists, liberal judges and illegal immigration advocates - have taken the state on a wildly reckless ride. Inflows to the treasury no longer match proposed and mandated spending. Property taxes alone have risen to the highest in the nation. This has resulted in the shrinking of the tax base as those who have been able to quit the state have done so.
From what Christie has been saying, we can gather that he understands the problem. He speaks plainly. The question remains: Will he be able to turn things around? As a Republican governor, openly critical of the administration, he cannot rely on Washington’s help. Neither can he depend on the on the unions to volunteer much by way of give-backs. Their knives are already out and sharpened. The state’s teachers unions have already issued death threats. The state’s liberal newspapers attack him daily as they make reference, among other things, to his weight.
Still, he seems to be determined to take New Jersey to a better place. As JB rightly suggest, his success or failure portends much for the nation as a whole. Unlike the federal government, states cannot print money; and neither can the Fed (and get away with it). Should Christie succeed, it means there is still hope for us to turn things around. Should he fail, it means we have already come too far, and the only thing we can hope for is that the airbags work.
http://peterkoelliker.blogspot.com/
If things don't work out, there's always secession. ;) I just hope that Americans haven't gone so far as to be like the Farm Animals® in Europe. If so, we are truly cooked.
"have not seen in the GOP since Giuliani in 1993 and TR a hell of a long time before that."
After reading more about TR, I have no fondness for him. He turned into a socialist and a progressive who wanted to control business through big government and thus change the populace into his pie in the sky vision. And as JB showed on a program a few weeks ago, he is one of the architects of WWII in the Pacific by his actions with Japan. Another disgraceful Nobel Peace Prize winner.
Taft saw through Roosevelt and only ran in 1912 to prevent TR from becoming president because of Roosevelt's radical views thus handing the government over to Wilson who also was a progressive. Wilson eventually installed a totalitarian government in 1917 with his version of brown shirts, sedition laws and a ministry of propaganda. People were asked to spy on their neighbors and the government read your mail. The only difference between TR and Wilson was on how to use the military. Somehow this all gets left out of the history books and all we are left with is Wilson's 14 pts, his gentle demeanor and his failure for the US joining a world organization, League of Nations and that Roosevelt was a great guy.
A sad time in US history we should never want to repeat.
JB's been a TR made WWII happen conspiratorialist for a long time. While TR turned out to be a progressive, my comments were made in the context that he had balls, which is something the effete politicians and pundits of today lack. As far as TR the man, there are huge differences between him and Wilson and most other presidents. In my opinion, the reason he was a progressive was from his guilt in having come from wealth and privilege. Had Ayn Rand preceded him and he had been introduced to objectivism, his outlook would have been different. Unfortunately things didn't turn out that way. In spite of his progressiveness, there's a lot to be admired about the man, and I would argue there have been very few in the White House that were on his level in terms of intelligence. Unfortunately, like the rest of us, he was human and subject to the same frailties all of us are.
I don't know if the guilt-over-wealth theory explains why TR was such a tree-hugger. I think in many aspects he was a foreshadowing of the environmentalist movement that wouldn't gain full throat for another 80-90 years.
I think maybe TR was the first POTUS who expanded government just for the sheer joy of doing so. TR was a power junky, much like most Presidents to come after him. This is the trend that ended up doing America in .... not a leftist ideology, or a rightist ideology, but the trend that the country is there to serve the politicans, and not vice versa. Of course, I'm sure there are history buffs here who can name examples of other POTUS before TR who were power junkies, so maybe I better modify it to say that TR was the first one to do it so effectively and unabashedly.
I've decided that the best name for the new conservative political party in the U.S. is not the Tea Party, or the Republicans, or even the Libertarians. It's the "Servant Party".
And the Servant Party litmus test will be a politician who understands that he or she is there to serve the constituency (wealthy, poor, and points in between) and not to serve some ideology, or even worse, his or her own self-interests.
By even wanting to run for the Servant Party it would say alot about a person. To understand that serving our fellow citizens is the greatest good a politician can ascribe to. You wouldn't have comments like Bennet's "I'd vote that way again even if it cost me the election."
If you want the most over-the-top, blatant, uber-egregious example of the antithesis of the Servant Party, look at the L.A. City Council's recent 13-1 vote to boycott Arizona over the immigration law. A recent running poll on the L.A.Times editorial blog (last time I checked, over 25,000 people had responded) showed 91% opposed the City Council's boycott, and probably 95%+ of the comments were that the City Council should be thrown out on their collective arses. And yet they purport to be our elected representatives. What a laugh, what an outrage!
Lou, I have to agree with the power thing, and he himself admitted as much. Still, there's a lot to be admired in his spirit. I still think he felt guilty about his wealth or coming from it.
As far as power hungry presidents, it seems to me whoever wants the job must have a certain amount of narcissism. Obama and Clinton are extremes, but even mild men that made it to the office had to have it. The only way to circumvent that is to have someone chosen by lottery. :) as far as presidents before him, try Jackson on for size.
Jim,
I read Schlesinger's bio of Jackson and while there was much to dislike about Jackson, he was at least a fan of hard money and keeping bankers from running the country, which don't seem all that bad in retrospect. As to non-control freak Presidents, I'd put forth Coolidge and Reagan for consideration.
Coolidge without a doubt. Ronnie liked Coolidge a lot, but Ronnie also liked TR. In fact they were two of his favorite presidents. When you get tot he twentieth century, it becomes harder to find presidents that believed in smaller government or as you put it, weren't control freaks. Even so, under Ronnie, the government didn't shrink. I'd like to see it cut back 50%.
Reagan's problem, in my opinion, wasn't that he was a control freak. He genuinely believed in smaller government. The problem was he wanted to be liked, and couldn't stand playing the tough guy and vetoing the pork. So he went with the strong dollar solution and the tax cuts, did everything right up to a point, but then when it came time for the other foot to fall and for spending to be cut, he lost his nerve (or perhaps his focus.)
I've watched the same thing happen to Schwarzenegger over the last 4 years. I had big hopes for the guy - he vowed left and right to slash taxes, balance the budget, make California business friendly again. Instead, once he got a taste of the teachers' and nurses' unions, he backed off and tried to be all things to all people. Still a nice guy but I have lost virtually all respect for him as a leader. He should have stuck with body-building, which he really excelled at.
I think his wife has his balls in a vise. That is the only way I can explain Arnold. Either that, or he's dr klaus/mr. marx. I don't think he would shy away from confrontation. He just doesn't seem that kind of guy.
You got to ask the unions for permission to take a dump in this State. You'd really have to see some of the things that go on to believe it.
In NY, you couldn't do anything without a union. I had a client that did a photo shoot in Jacob Javits in the mid 90's. He had to pay 2 union electricians to plug and unplug his speedotrons and he had to pay them for the day. It was like $1000 for the day. Nuts. One time I was setting up a computer at Depository Trust Corp and I had to run an ethernet cable. It was about 10' and I had to snake it through an AC vent unit. It was 3pm, and the union electricians were pissed because it was near quitting time. I could have done it in 5 minutes, but I would have been called back as the cable would have been cut. A lifetime ago, I was a glazier. My bosses dad was a union glazier. he wouldn't do something they wanted him to do and they tossed him off a 23rd floor. The safety rope failed. I hate unions, and I hate what they stand for: Organized thuggery, and the antithesis to free market. It's the mob legitimized.