As Chris Christie continues to bulldoze long standing areas of excellence in New Jersey, has he actually done anything to benefit the state?
In a word, No.
He campaigned on the high unemployment and celebrated his gubernatorial win by promising layoffs throughout the state. He attacked Corzine for spending and upon election, increased the cost of the Governor's budget for staff and services. He argued in his campaign that Governor Corzine wasn't focused on New Jersey's issues and now he has spent a good portion of his first year in office travelling around the country to campaign for other political figures. During that same campaign junket, he spent a lot of time bragging about things he's done in New Jersey that he hasn't actually done yet.
Mr. Christie has a perception of reality that seems somewhat out of sync with the reality that the rest of the people of New Jersey are living in. We could always assume that his disconnect stems from the disproportionate amount of time he spends shouting, bragging and bellowing compared to how much time he actually spends solving problems and we would likely be right on the money.
Speaking of money, how are we all sitting with the 440 million dollars in "Race To The Top" money he managed to throw out with the "I hate the Unions" bathwater? It is almost laughable to think that he actually stood by his argument that it was all Brett Schundler's fault when everyone in the state was fully aware that he threw out a compromise agreement with the NJEA that would have guaranteed the award, because he couldn't bear the idea of Jim Gearheart slamming him on the radio.
In addition to the 440 million lost in education funding, we might as well add in the 271 million that the federal government is now billing New Jersey for the ARC tunnel project that Mr. Christie has now killed. That brings the total cost of Mr. Savings' tab to a minimum of 711 Million dollars. Compound the lost revenues in taxes and growth that the tunnel would have brought to New Jersey and throw some rough estimates in about how much New Jersey will now be paying in services like food stamps, health insurance assistance, housing assistance to all the people that will now be laid off and hitting the unemployment lines. Or the 40 + million dollars spent by the DOT to buy real-estate around the proposed tunnel station. If not the total, New Jersey is likely near the rough estimate total of over 1 billion dollars squandered in his first year. What will the next three years look like?
So far, the only thing that Mr. Christie has managed to accomplish is to make New Jersey less desirable, educationally weaker, fiscally more unstable and poorer, and more ideologically divided than it has been in decades. And the accolades from the right for him are actually growing. Everyday another news personality reminds us that Mr. Christie is a contender for the Republican nomination for 2012. About the only positive footnote to this spin is that he says he doesn't want to do it... in 2012. 2016 maybe? Who knows, but it could be that he knows he wouldn't fair well against Barack Obama and would rather bide his time for a lesser opponent.
There is a lesson to be learned in all this and which was made even clearer in the national mid-term elections; not voting has consequences. Many of those that didn't turn out to vote will likely be the ones complaining that they aren't being served for the next 3 years, Just as many of those screaming about the horror story that Chris Christie has turned out to be in their lives are the same people that didn't vote in the November 2009.
Mr. Christie didn't win in a landslide; he won in an apathy-slide. Sadly, his lack of humility has him convinced he can walk on water, heal the lame and raise the dead and that if he just yells a little louder, no one will realize how wrong he is.
Why do I feel compelled to rehash what we are already fully aware of?
School officials say Christie's superintendent pay cap will cost N.J. talent
It isn't bad enough he is gutting the system of education in the classrooms and destroying what little hope New Jersey has for a recovery but now he is creating an environment that will dissuade the most talented educational leaders from seeking work in New Jersey as well. After enjoying years of being considered one of the top states for education in the nation, instead of a Race To the Top, it feels like Mr. Christie is engaged in a nosedive to the bottom. |
.gif)
