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The Spectacle Blog
With yet another video of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie displaying some impressive rhetoric starting to make the rounds, I thought it was time for an update on his actual accomplishments. There's no point in wasting time talking about him as a candidate for higher office if his achievements don't match his reformist image.
Today Christie reached an agreement with the legislature on his budget, which closes a $10.7 billion revenue gap -- the second-highest in the country, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and a New Jersey record -- without raising taxes. The plan includes cutting $820 million in public school funding, trimming $445 million in local-government transfers, and skipping the scheduled $3 billion state pension contribution, which must be made up in the future. Christie's decision to postpone pension reform to a future year seems justifiable given the urgency of plugging a deficit about one-third the size of the budget.
Democrats are playing along with Christie's budget because their alternative, which was to impose a "Millionaire Tax," failed when they couldn't find enough Republican votes to override Christie's veto.
Meanwhile, yesterday Christie's signature issue, constitutionally capping property tax growth at 2.5 percent, got a big boost when the popular Democratic mayor of Newark, Cory Booker, endorsed the policy.
Lastly, it looks like Christie's administration is getting closer to enacting a meaningful school choice program, as the bill's Democratic sponsor announced today that he was making small compromises that he hoped would make it legislatively viable.
Taking these developments in consideration with what Christie's already done -- most notably, taking the unheard-of step of replacing a Supreme Court Justice, in this case a very problematic one -- it seems as though so far he's delivering on his promises.
An aside: while reading about the latest on Christie's veto of the Millionaire Tax, I came across this Ryan McNeely post on Matt Yglesias's blog. McNeely uses some deceptive editing of a Reuters article to make Christie look bad.
Here's McNeely's excerpt, sic'd:
Democrats want to re-impose a one-year tax on millionaires that has been vetoed by Republican Governor Chris Christie. The 10.75 percent tax on income above $1 million would hit 16,000 people, some of them likely to work as financial professionals just across the Hudson River in New York.
According to the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services, a retired couple living on a fixed income of $40,000 would see an increase of $1,320 in taxes under the governor's plan while a family making $1.2 million would receive a tax cut of $11,598.
The reader would think that this is uninterrupted text from the Reuters article. In fact it's not: the Reuters report, in context, says something significantly different:
Democrats want to re-impose a one-year tax on millionaires that has been vetoed by Republican Governor Chris Christie. The 10.75 percent tax on income above $1 million would hit 16,000 people, some of them likely to work as financial professionals just across the Hudson River in New York.
Both houses of the legislature, which are controlled by Democrats, previously approved the tax in May but it was immediately vetoed by Christie, who has pledged not to raise taxes.
The tax would raise $637 million that the state would use to fund rebate checks of up to $1,295 for some 600,000 senior citizens who would otherwise face steep increases in their property taxes during fiscal 2011.
According to the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services, a retired couple living on a fixed income of $40,000 would see an increase of $1,320 in taxes under the governor's plan while a family making $1.2 million would receive a tax cut of $11,598.
McNeely's excerpt would lead you to think that Christie was raising taxes on retirees to give bankers a tax cut. The article, however, makes clear that Christie's vetoing of the tax cut means that the state will have to cut property tax rebates to make budget. That's some questionable excerpting. But how else to reach the hysterical conclusion McNeely wants to make:
But at the very least this exposes what the modern conservative movement is really about -- protecting the wealthiest .2% of New Jerseyans at the expense of the most vulnerable.
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More Blog Posts by Joseph Lawler
http://spectator.org/blog/2010/06/22/christie-and-results
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Brian | 6.22.10 @ 8:05PM
I haven't seen many actual accomplishments. He has not shrunk the size of NJ's government nor is he paying the bills. If I choose to "balance" my budget by refusing to pay my mortgage, there are consequences. He chooses not to pay into the pension fund once again and is hailed as a conservative hero. I am not buying it; rhetoric and populist union bashing accomplishes no lasting reform.
Albert Anthony Turner| 6.23.10 @ 9:08AM
Let's see, 60 or 70 years of socialism and a person in office for a year and a half who is making inroads against that trend. Let me think about that for a minute. OK. Christie's ahead.
If anybody thinks this is going to be easy to change this insanity and that you can do it overnight, you are as dumb as a box of rocks.
Ammo Guy| 6.23.10 @ 11:45AM
Heck, "a year and a half"? He took office on January 19, 2010 which means he's barely been in office for five months! Let's check back in a year and see how he's doing.
Albert Anthony Turner| 6.23.10 @ 11:58AM
My mistake on the election time frame. You are correct.
Freedom's Daughter| 6.23.10 @ 2:58PM
Absolutely. This is a great start! No wonder people are beginning to look at him as presidential timber. He is savvy, too! He is going to be great, just wait and see.
Boston12GS| 6.22.10 @ 10:30PM
He's not paying into the public union pension fund? HURRAH! That thing is a rape upon the tax payers. I can't think of a better piece of lard upon which to balance the state budget. If the "teachers" (really, the bloated administrative staff) don't like it, let them find jobs in the dreaded private sector. Yeah, that's what I thought.
mimi cha| 6.23.10 @ 7:09AM
Sorry Boston, a deal's a deal. Teachers work hard for their pay and pensions. If the deal is too generous, then it needs to be renegotiated - not welshed on. As a recently retired teacher in another state, things are grim enough!
SCM| 6.23.10 @ 12:36PM
The GM and Chrysler bondholders got shafted by the government and that was OK. What's good for the goose (private business and investors) is good for the gander (public employee unions).
Burke| 6.23.10 @ 12:46PM
mimi cha -- The NJ teacher's union got a sweetheart contract from the previous governor-- a 4 or 5% increase every year. When Christie took office, he asked the teachers union to accept a one-year one freeze, and start paying for some their health care. He pointed out that many taxpayers were unemployed, or underemployed, and that the unions should be sharing the hard times. The teachers' union pretty much told him to go to hell, and to raise taxes--in a state where property taxes have gone up 70% in the last ten years, and where overall taxes have TRIPLED in the last twenty.
Freedom's Daughter| 6.23.10 @ 3:05PM
Teachers are overpaid, especially in light of the product they are not producing! In the past, teachers were paid much less, put in long hours, and produced a much better product. Homemakers are now having to educate their children are home because of many reasons, not the least of which is to ensure a properly educated citizen, whose morals are not hindered by the schools.
Time to cut the dept. of ed, put the education into the private sector, and allow the parents to be in charge of educating their children. The public system is a FAILURE! Time to scrap it.
Wil Schuemann| 6.23.10 @ 11:15AM
Sorry, mimi cha. If you make a bet to receive a benefit that cannot be paid, given financial reality, then you made a bad bet. You will eventually realize that your pension dream is not going to be realized, because insufficient wealth exists to fulfill your pension dream, along with all the other pension dreams of other similarly deluded individuals. Had you benefited from some basic economic knowledge, you would have recognized the futility of your pension bet.
Bill Browne| 6.23.10 @ 11:22AM
What the Gov. has done is stand up against the standards of the teachers. He has openly exposed the truth of the sham they perpetuate.
He has the courage of sound convictions shared by a lot us.
Andy Bradshaw| 6.23.10 @ 2:16PM
In 1976, New Jersey imposed a state income tax to provide for a way to fund education so that there would be less of a reliance on property taxes. The income tax was sold as "property tax relief".
If you devide all the money collected from income tax by the number of school children in NJ you could give each more than $8,000. Instead, the state Supreme Court came up with a funding formula that favors a handful of urban districts. Under Christie, these urban districts get more than 60% of the total, up from 54% under Corzine.
What that means is that a great many suburban school children are now getting nothing from the state. That's no income tax money back for property tax relief -- as in zero. This means that their property taxes will rise because education is always going to cost something.
Now this isn't about rich and poor, because the Court has acknowledged that 49% of poor children live outside the favored urban districts. Hoboken is one of those favored and it has a median income of $115,000. That's higher than most of the districts that get less.
So I don't know about this budget. Stay tuned.
NJConservative| 6.23.10 @ 2:17PM
Mr. Lawler --
As a conservative in NJ let me tell you what Christie is doing to our state.
First, this idea that Christie has cut $10.7B from last year’s budget. How is that possible when last year Corzine spent $29.8B and Christie is spending $28.3B (both sans stimulus)? There are no cuts. That is just a phantom, meaningless number.
Christie’s budget proposal is a disaster that is going to lead to massive property tax increases. The cuts you hear about to state aid aren't cuts to state government. There are ZERO cuts to state government under Christie's budget. NONE. What he is doing is taking away $2.56B in property tax relief from the people in suburban and rural areas to increase spending in Trenton by 6%. Add that figure back in and Christie’s budget is MORE than Corzine’s.
State aid in NJ is derived from the income tax and half cent of the sales tax. By constitutional amendment that money is supposed to go back to towns and municipalities in the way of school aid, municipal aid and rebates.
That $2.56B is staying in Trenton and being used to grow government and entitlement programs. $613M for pre-K’s in “special needs” districts (Abbott Districts). Over $100M to fund a PUBLIC OPTION health insurance program called FamilyCare. Increase in food eligibility from 135% to 185% of the poverty level.
He’s using almost $70M from a CAP & TRADE program called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative to plug the budget hole.
There is NO justification for punting on the pension obligation. That only adds to the state's $40B+ debt. NJ already has a $173B pension liability according to Mercatus. Christie should be taking steps to end the defined benefit program and moving to 401k’s. He’s doing nothing about this. Even Corzine put $160M toward the pension system last year.
Unions? There is not one layoff coming. There are no union contracts being renegotiated. Christie is not taking the unions on at all. What you see is a lot of bluster and some sound bites that media types can glom onto – but behind it there’s no substance.
Did I mention that Christie is also against offshore drilling and exploration for natural gas?
And he refuses to join the lawsuits on Obamacare but agreed to participate in the high risk pools while no other Republican governor did.
Yes, it’s time to examine his real record. I just laid it out for you. Maybe now some of your readers will know the truth about the RINO in Trenton.
BobbyRomano| 6.24.10 @ 6:18AM
Mr. Lawler must be another one of those out-of-state reporters looking for a job with Chris Christie. He clearly doesn't live here. My property taxes are up $1800 on my home in Brick, and I lost my $500 rebate check also. This is what I get for voting for this jerk.