Wednesday, January 26, 2011

I NEED TO VENT!!! (Chris Christie Edition)

I do not live in the state of New Jersey and my life is not directly affected by Gov. Chris Christie. The good citizens, in their anger at the state of the economy, took their rage out at then Gov. Jon Corzine, the former head of Goldman Sachs and elected Christie, who has been in office for a little more than a year.

Christie has shown himself to be not my cup of tea and has now shown himself to be a hypocrite.

In order to be fair I have to point out that when Christie took office he inherited a state in fiscal crisis. Huge deficits, unfunded pension liabilities, and one of the highest property tax rates in the country presented the guy with huge challenges. Faced with all of this and a state constitution that requires a balanced budget required that he make tough choices and demand that residents of the state share in the pain that he would have to mete out in attempting to get the state back on a more solid footing. Both Democrats and Republicans ran away from making the tough decisions and Christie would have to make them.

One of his first choices was to let a tax increase passed by the Democratic controlled state legislature expire. The tax had been enacted on those making $400,000 and above and had raised significant millions. Parroting the now-getting-old Republican claptrap that jobs would be created by getting rid of the tax, he paid for it by cutting or eliminating programs that were helping to keep the poor and kids above the water line. In other words, those least able to either fight back or survive the programs being eliminated were going to have to pay a price so that the monied classes could have more.

When Christie was running for Gov he railed against "big government" and told the electorate that he wanted the federal government to get off the backs of the people and the state. He railed against teachers and unions and everything else Republicans hate. Given the state of the country, the sheep forgot what Republicans do to everyone but the rich and the voters jumped off the cliff and elected him. They have paid the price for their irrational anger and will continue to do so.

We had an early winter snow storm in December that caused havoc in many places here in the Mid-Atlantic region, most especially in New Jersey. While the state was virtually shut down and paralyzed by the event, Christie was vacationing with his family at Disneyworld. Now I don't begrudge anyone time with the family, but the rules are different when you are the Gov of a state. If you are the Gov, I believe that you get on a plane and come back. Christie said that he didn't need to come back because he wasn't going to be driving a snowplow. It's about appearance, in my opinion, and Christie showed bad form by not coming back. The family could have stayed in Florida while he came back. Hell, the guy wasn't going to go on too many rides as he wouldn't have fit in the cars anyway. The visual of this rather large person being loop-de-looped should never be shown to children.

Why is he a hypocrite? Remember, this is a guy who hates the federal government and wants regulations and such to go away. OK, if that's how you feel, then please explain the letter Christie wrote to FEMA asking for $53,000,000 to pay for the December storm and those that have followed. The word is chutzpah (big balls in Yiddish). This fat fuck, who hates government, now wants the very entity he wants off the back of the state (and the rest of us) to pay his bill. Hey Christie, reimpose the tax cut you gave to the wealthy and pay for your own shovels and road salt. It happens every time one of these right wing asshole governors gets in trouble - they come home to Mama for bailout money. Christie isn't the only one - remember Bobby Jindal of Louisiana? He squealed like a pig demanding the feds to do more for his state after the oil spill.

If I were the director of FEMA I would write Christie explaining that there will be no money for his problem since we are in the era of budget cuts and reduced funding. I would suggest that he find ways to pay his own way - like maybe restoring the tax increase on the Wall Street types he rewarded.

Gov. Christie has shown that, like many of his political persuasion, somewhere along the way he lost his soul. I believe that unless he finds a way to stop hurting the little people he will be a one-term resident of the Governor's mansion in Trenton.

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