The New Christie Miracles

From Ronald Reagan to Bill Clinton, America enjoyed robust economic growth. Assume for a moment that George W. Bush is personally responsible for bringing that growth to a stop. It is nonetheless true that the Federal Government and most of the state governments spent like drunken sailors all the way through to now. No, that's unfair. I got carried away. Your drunken sailor would be scratching his head and saying, "well…maybe I should go home and sleep it off" well before things got to this point.

Republicans in general have been plenty guilty in all this, but one recently elected Republican seems to know what to do about it. From the Wall Street Journal:

Governor Christie is on a mission to make New Jersey competitive once again in the contest to attract people and capital… Listen to Mr. Christie's take on the state of his state: "We are, I think, the failed experiment in America—the best example of a failed experiment in America—on taxes and bigger government. Over the last eight years, New Jersey increased taxes and fees 115 times."

New Jersey's residents now suffer under the nation's highest tax burden. Yet the tax hikes haven't come close to matching increases in spending. Mr. Christie recently introduced a $29.3 billion state budget to eliminate a projected $11 billion deficit for fiscal year 2011.

New Jersey's Governor seems determined to actually cut state spending. He has put his every power as Governor where his mouth is by declaring a state of emergency and freezing spending wherever he could by law. It might seem to require a miracle to bring his state's budget under control, but then the election of a Republican in this bluest of blue states was miraculous to begin with. One way to push a miracle is by calling people's bluff. From Gene Healy in the Examiner:

Consider the clever move Christie made last week, offering to free up aid for school districts whose teachers agreed to wage freezes. It's all about the children, right? So far only a handful of districts have gone along.

A recent memo from New Jersey teacher's union reps in Bergen County ends with a cutesy "prayer" for the governor's death.

Given a choice between accepting a pay cut and grinding children into toothpaste, your average teacher's union will opt for oral hygiene. It's indeed clever to force that choice.

But the most impressive New Jersey miracle is this:

Christie's running a bold experiment: treating voters like adults, telling them what's needed to get out of their predicament. It's the right thing to do, and given where New Jersey stands, probably as wise a political choice as any (it's not like [Gov] Corzine stayed popular by ducking the hard choices).

As Christie puts it: "It should've been dealt with years ago. It wasn't. ... If people don't like it after four years, they can send me home."

More like this, please.

Yes. More like this. Now is the time to replace wish bones with backbones. We cannot know that Republicans will deserve to win by acting like Governor Christie. We can only know that those who do so deserve to win.

Comments

[Stan Gibilisco]

"Your drunken sailor would be scratching his head and saying, 'Well ... maybe I should go home and sleep it off' well before things got to this point."

As a well-seasoned ex-drunk, I beg to differ.

In almost any country other than these United States, your drunken sailor would have passed out well before things got to this point -- and quite possibly fallen overboard.

Methinks that when all the equations are boiled down, all the numerators and denominators cancelled out, all the adding and subtracting done, and all the government forms filled out, we will suddenly look in a mirror, each and every one, and see the real culprit staring red-eyed right back at us.

[George Mason]

Stan; I believe you are correct to a great extent. However some of us, capable of simple math, have been hoping for sensible change in or government spending habits for many years. Unfortunately when change has been proposed, Bush's Social Security reform, Reagans line item veto, it has been vigorously opposed by members of congress because it would infringe upon their vote buying capabilities (to which you elude). We need to start seeking out candidates (ala the Tea Parties) who will go to Washington and actually cut the waste. In my lifetime I hope I hear a member of congress return to their state and proclaim "this is what we saved" rather than "this how much pork I secured." For all the spending too little good is accomplished. That is why the members of congress (from both parties) always return to their states to proclaim "this is how much we spent" and not "this is what we accomplished." Government cannot give you anything it has not first taken away from you or your neighbor.

[KB]

Stan: right on both counts. Unfortunately governments don't ever pass out. They just keep spending. As for the second point, yeah, we have met the enemy and he is us. But if we are going to do something about it, we need more politicians like Governor Christie.

[Guard]

Actually, the hole we are in now began with the live beyond your means of Reagan and the 1980s. Yah, it was great then through Clinton, but, that's what got us into this mess that we are paying for now. So, you really can't lay this at the feet of President Obama, that's if you have any credibility.

[Guard]

After all, we are all to blame for this. No one is innocent because we all live off the system one way or another to include the use of public services. So, blaming the politicians, who are merely representative of us, is pointless and counterproductive.

[KB]

Guard: Who said anything about the current President here? But now that you mention it, the spending we have been doing since Obama took office dwarfs anything that came before it. Presidents get the blame. That's part of their job.

[Guard]

Yes, they do get the blame and I was just setting the record straight that we are all to blame really and that pointing the finger at just one or the current President is actually counter productive because they really do not control the economy. It would be more accurate to place blame on us who have lived beyond our means if you are actually interested in getting to the heart of the matter. That's what a scholar does anyway.

[Stan Gibilisco]

"It would be more accurate to place blame on us who have lived beyond our means if you are actually interested in getting to the heart of the matter."

Guard, I agree completely.

And now ...

How do we get people to conduct themselves with fiscal responsibility? I know at least one individual who seems, for all the world, absolutely determined to do the opposite. I suspect that millions -- if not tens of millions -- of people like him exist in this country today. What should society do with them?

[Guard]

Stan, "What should society do with them?" It's too late I'm afraid my friend. Think of the analogy this way: If you don't "properly" discipline your children, teaching them to be responsible before they hit puberty, they have become a lost cause as my mom use to say. We see it everyday. Parents who let their children run wild until age 13 and then try to lay down the gauntlet with them find them impossible to discipline. The same with society: we are too late. The masses have not brought up the children with much "proper" discipline" and as the Offspring song title acurately says: "The Kids Aren't Alright."