The Chris Christie Conundrum

Being a resident of New Jersey can be really confusing sometimes.

You got Giants fans in the north and Eagles fans in the south (I'm a Washington fan) and a mostly-absent Cowboys fan-governor like Chris Christie whose insatiable desire to placate his conservative critics seems to come at the price of serving the constituents that he was elected to serve.

Now it doesn't take a seasoned political expert to see that Christie's presidential ambitions for 2016 are pretty much done.

Earlier this afternoon I was watching CNN's Jake Tapper doing a political roundup segment showing the latest results from a new CNN/ORC poll of the leading 10 Republican presidential candidates.

Donald Trump currently leads the field by double digits at 24% (which pretty much tells you all you need to know about the Republican party...) followed by Jeb Bush with 11%, Ben Carson at 9%, Marco Rubio and Scott Walker tied at 8%, Rand Paul at 6%, Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina and John Kaisch all tied at 5% and Mike Huckabee at 4%.

Christie isn't even in the top ten. His image wasn't even on the fancy interactive digital screen with the candidate's faces and their poll numbers; you know that thing CNN's John King loves to play with?

Worse, Christie's name wasn't even brought up.

No disrespect to Christie, but I don't think you can really serve two masters in the national political arena and expect to succeed on both fronts.

Politically speaking if you're the governor of a state like New Jersey, New York, California, Texas, Florida, Ohio, Massachusetts or Pennsylvania, it's pretty much a "national" position that can serve as a launchpad to the White House - if you're focused and IF have your political shit together.

Christie seems to have neither at this point.

With an unsolved pension reform mess, stagnant job growth, flat wages, the Bridge Gate scandal still unresolved, truckloads of pissed-off NJ homeowners who're still waiting for federal relief funds for homes damaged by Superstorm Sandy on his plate, Christie has enough to deal with here in the Garden State.

And being out of the state more than 220 days this year isn't going to solve any of those issue any faster,

Say what you want about former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, but even she was able to recognize that it wouldn't be fair to her constituents to serve as governor AND give 100% to a national presidential campaign - so she resigned.

It ended up hurting her politically but at least she faced up to it.

Christie doesn't seem able to do that and I'm not sure an unpopular governor with plunging approval numbers in his own economically-stagnant state can really make a case for the Republican nomination; especially with a closet full of Bridge Gate skeletons waiting to tumble out.

Look at the image up at the top of this post, I didn't just pick that image to pick on Christie, that's taken from a July 5th open post by the Monmouth Watchdog on New Jersey's Marlboro-Coltsneck Patch calling on Chris Christie to resign as governor - the opening sentence pretty much sums up what many New Jersey residents think of Christie:

"We face big problems in this state. Our credit rating is a disaster. Our unemployment rate is high. Our economic growth is slow. Our infrastructure is crumbling. Our pensions are in crisis. Our schools are underfunded. And now our governor has abandoned the job  to campaign for the job he really wants."

So what does Christie do in the face of his not-even-mentioned-on-CNN low single percentage in the presidential and plummeting popularity in his own state? Wait for it...wait for it.....

Anti-tax zealot Grover Norquist has Christie on board

Last Tuesday August 11th he announces he's signing fringe anti-tax anti-government zealot Grover Norquist's diabolically stupid "Tax Payer Protection Pledge" to never raise taxes if elected president!

What happened to Christie? Did someone force-feed him the Kool-Aid?

Have you seen the other Republican governors who've followed Norquist into the abyss of fiscal reason and signed onto the TPP? 

How about Kansas Governor Sam Brownback of Kansas and Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana?

Both of these ideological bubble-heads have driven their respective state's tax revenue-starved economies to the brink of insolvency, now Christie thinks that's a good idea for a presidential candidate?

Grover Norquist certainly does, as an August 12th article on NJ.com quoted him as saying after Christie signed the TPP:  

"By signing the Taxpayer Protection Pledge to the American people, Governor Christie continues his commitment to protect American taxpayers," said Grover Norquist, president of Americans For Tax Reform. "Governor Christie understands that government should be reformed so that it takes and spends less of the taxpayer's money," he said. "(He) will oppose tax increases that paper over and continue failures of the past."

Now I truly wish I could've been a fly on the wall at the meeting that took place this morning at NJ Senator Corey Booker's office in Newark as the Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx, NJ Senator Robert Menendez and Governor Christie sat down to hammer out a way to get a new Hudson River rail tunnel project off the ground. (New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was a no-show)

If you want a pretty good recap on this sudden about face (or should we say save face...) for Governor Christie, check out this segment from this morning's Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC with NJ Spotlight reporter Meir Linde and Jessica Gould of WNYC.

According to a New York Times recap of the meeting by Emma Fitzsimmons, the group claimed it was a productive meeting and said in a joint statement:

“The State of New Jersey supports the Gateway Project and is committed to developing a framework with the federal government to begin it,” the statement said. “We all recognize that the only way forward is equitable distribution of funding responsibility and the active participation of all parties.”

By "active participation of all parties" I'm guessing that's a nice way of saying "Andrew Cuomo better get his ass to the next meeting" but the operative phrase there is "equitable distribution of funding responsibility".

That means New Jersey has to kick in it's fair share to this project and despite Grover Norquist's meaningless, non-specific anti-tax rhetoric, this tunnel project IS in the interest of ALL tax payers; so even though we already pay some of the highest taxes in American, folks in New Jersey are going to have to pony up to get this thing built.

I'm willing to do that, I don't like the idea of paying more taxes but the tunnel is necessary.


As I blogged about back on July 26th, the federal government has already committed funds to the project, we know what's going to happen if the project isn't started ASAP and the current North River Tunnels aren't going to just stop deteriorating anytime soon.

The only question seems to be if Governor Christie can put the needs of millions of transit riders and the future of effective mass transit along the northeastern rail corridor ahead of his dwindling presidential ambitions. Which one will he attach his name and legacy to?

Therein lies the conundrum.

  

Republican Math - Schock Resigns, Jindal Courts Grover & The GOP's Fantasy Budget

Congressman Aaron Schock lecturing on Capitol Hill

As much time as Republicans spend lecturing Democrats, American voters and even themselves about fiscal discipline, runaway spending, bloated budgets and the ubiquitous "government waste", it seems like they have an awful lot of politicians who struggle with basic math.

Aaron Schock, the 33 year-old conservative 'wunderkind' Republican Congressman representing the Illinois 18th District, announced his resignation effective March 31st in the wake of embarrassing Congressional spending scandals that first surfaced after a Washington Post article detailing the thousands of taxpayer dollars he spent redecorating his Congressional offices in a lavish "English country manor" motif inspired by the PBS series 'Downton Abbey'.

After ducking awkward questions from reporters for weeks about his stays in expensive hotels, flights on private planes and dinners in fancy restaurants improperly billed to the American people, Schock finally relented after a well-researched article on Politico.com by Jake Sherman, Anna Palmer and John Bresnahan showed that Schock requested mileage reimbursement for 170,000 miles racked up on his Chevy Tahoe that only had 80,000 miles on the odometer when he sold it.

Oh, and as the Politico.com article notes, "In November 2009, less than a year after Schock took his seat in Congress, the lawmaker bought the 2010 Tahoe from Green Chevrolet in Peoria. The dealership is owned by Jeff Green, a contributor to Schock who has flown the congressman around his district in his airplane and helicopter."

When the story started to break last month, it was like manna from Heaven for progressive bloggers.
I too feasted upon it back in a February post, but not to make light of Schock's personal troubles.

Part of what drew the media to this story of financial excess was the fact that Schock positioned himself as one of those spend-thrift conservatives who treat any kind of government spending as taxpayer waste - yet view tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans paid for by the same taxpayers, like some kind of religious mantra.

Surfs up! Aaron Schock hangs ten

So while Schock was supporting Republican bills to cut spending for education, IRS enforcement, food stamp assistance for families and Medicare; he was using his own Congressional expenditure allowances to live some kind of fantasy rock-star life style (pictured left).

Seriously, you gotta read the Politico.com piece; it's almost like he's a character right out of the Netflix series 'House of Cards'. 

Speaking of things that don't quite add up, Republican Louisiana Governor/presidential hopeful Bobby Jindal is making some news of his own, and it's not good.
 
Jindal has dutifully played the good little Republican soldier with the hopes the GOP's rainmakers would bestow their ble$$ings upon his presidential aspirations.

In any kind of international crisis he's always been good for a generic anti-Obama quote when Republicans want to undermine the Commander-in-Chief's foreign policy decisions and need someone to make soundbite-worthy cheap shots to replay for the Fox News audience.

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal

Back in 2013 Jindal was quick to weigh in on the 'Duck Dynasty' debate when cast member and family patriarch Phil Roberts came under fire for his controversial remarks in an interview about homosexuals and African-Americans.

Even though most Americans were pretty shocked at Roberts' comments and A&E suspended the show, Jindal quickly joined the ranks of conservatives who viewed the backlash against Roberts' comments as an attack on his religion.

Jiudal publicly defended Roberts' right to use his unusual interpretation of Christianity to act like a homophobic bigot.

But Jindal set himself up for fiscal problems when he signed up for non-elected anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist's draconian "Taxpayer Protection Pledge" to never raise taxes under any circumstances.

As reported by Politico.com, Louisiana is now facing a daunting $1.6 billion budget shortfall and even Republican members of his state legislature are at odds with his stubborn refusal to raise tax revenues because of his allegiance to Grover Norquist.

According to the Politico article, Jindal even consulted with members of Norquist's group, Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) on how to solve the revenue gap without violating his "pledge" to Norquist; who elected Bobby anyway, Grover or the people of Louisiana?

Even though Norquist's "TPP" pledge is akin to a revered Holy Grail for conservatives, the economics behind Norquist's tax policy simply don't work in the real world; as numerous economists have proved.

The "TPP" is more of an ideology, or a philosophy (Utopian fantasy?) than it is a viable economic strategy, but that hasn't stopped over 279 Republican Congressman and Senators from signing it.

The "Starve the Beast" economic model delights Tea Partiers as an affirmation of the enduring Republican myth that Ronald Reagan's "Trickle Down Economic" theories worked; but they actually didn't - Republicans seem to have forgotten that Reagan actually raised taxes in his 2nd term and left enormous federal deficits when he left office. 

As Wikipedia notes: "Historian Bruce Bartlett, former domestic policy adviser to President Ronald Reagan, has called Starve the Beast "the most pernicious fiscal doctrine in history", and blames it for the increase in US government debt since the 1980s.

Republican Kansas Governor Sam Brownback unleashed the Norquistian tax nonsense on his own state with absurd tax breaks on businesses and wealthy individuals that have left the state crippled financially, woefully short of revenue and lagging far behind neighboring states in job creation and job growth. In short, a disaster.

But now the music has stopped in Louisiana and Bobby Jindal is struggling to find a chair.

The same inter-party squabbles that Jindal is facing in his own state, are reflective of massive disagreement over federal spending in Washington as well.

The budget proposal that the Republican-majority House of Representatives released yesterday was filled with sweeping cuts to government spending so absurd in scope, it not only has zero chance of passing; even a number of Republicans are flabbergasted John Boehner had the nerve to release it.

President Obama promptly rejected it and stopped just short of mocking the loony Republican proposal to trim a staggering $5.5 TRILLION in Federal spending through savage cuts in food stamps, Medicaid and privatizing Medicare; THAT should go down with well with seniors in the 2016 elections.

Where did they even come up with that? Maybe Paul Ryan left it in his locker in the Congressional gym.

Even Republican Senators, many of whom are up for re-election in 2016, blasted Boehner's House budget as out of step with reality. But as the nation and the world have seen with the new Republican Congressional and Senate majorities; being in step with reality is not a GOP strong point, or a priority.

You can't govern if you can't do the math.