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Christie’s housewarming present as governor was thus a state beset by government-induced rot – a plague sustained by powerful special interests. For a more conventional politician, this would have been an invitation for cautious, incremental leadership; rack up a few politically easy wins and start setting your sights on reelection. Not for Christie.
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| Chris Christie doesn’t seem like a man prone to idol worship. In less than five months as New Jersey’s governor, the iconoclast-in-chief has thrown most of the state’s sacred political cows on the grill, from teachers’ unions to a derelict legislature.
It may come as a surprise, then, to note that the Garden State’s chief executive has a bit of a weakness for his homeland’s most famous rock star, Bruce Springsteen. Shortly before taking office, Christie claimed to have attended 122 Springsteen concerts – though the liberal rocker from Long Branch pointedly refused to make Christie’s inauguration number 123 (this despite the fact that the incoming governor offered to make a donation to a charity of Springsteen’s choice). But if Christie hasn’t exactly managed to make his idol a golfing buddy, he has taken some wisdom from his musical muse: it helps when people know you’re the boss.
Upon taking office, Christie inherited what may be the most dysfunctional state government in the nation. As Wall Street Journal columnist and New Jersey native William McGurn (a former White House colleague of mine) has pointed out, “According to the nonpartisan Tax Foundation, New Jersey is home to the most hostile tax environment for business in the nation. We also bear the nation's highest burden of state and local taxes. And on the list of the 10 counties with the highest median property tax, we claim seven of them … From 2000 to 2007, says the New Jersey Business & Industry Association, the government added 54,800 jobs. To put that in proper perspective, that works out to 93% of all jobs created in New Jersey over those seven years.”
Christie’s housewarming present as governor was thus a state beset by government-induced rot – a plague sustained by powerful special interests. For a more conventional politician, this would have been an invitation for cautious, incremental leadership; rack up a few politically easy wins and start setting your sights on reelection. Not for Christie. The former U.S. Attorney who earned a 130-0 record prosecuting public corruption charges was intent on fundamental change. And he didn’t feel the need to mask an iron fist with a velvet glove. Indeed, he may be to governors what William Tecumseh Sherman was to generals.
Charged with managing a state that is a fiscal basket case, Christie has decided to strike at the root of New Jersey’s economic ruin. Last month, he rolled out an audacious series of reform proposals. He introduced a constitutional amendment that would limit annual property tax hikes to 2.5 percent; proposed a 2.5 percent cap for public employee wage and benefit packages; suggested that New Jersey towns should be able to opt out of civil service hiring and firing rules that keep government sclerotic, and supported a $15,000 cap on unused sick leave by public-sector workers.
These new reform proposals only build on the momentum of his first days in office, when Christie declared a state of fiscal emergency, signed an executive order freezing state spending and cut $13 billion from the New Jersey budget. His discipline on spending is matched by his principled stand against tax increases. When the state legislature passed a “millionaire’s tax” late last month, Christie vetoed the bill … within two minutes. This grows out of a simple conviction. In the governor’s own words, “I don’t think there’s anybody in New Jersey who believes government has a revenue problem. Government has a spending and debt problem and the only way to tackle that is to choke off the money sent to government.”
As he continues his push for reform, Christie’s next target is education. He recently made waves at a Rutherford town hall meeting when a local teacher objected to his plans for reforming compensation for public school instructors (Christie proposes a one-year pay freeze for Garden State teachers and suggests that educators should pay for 1.5 percent of the value of their benefit packages – they currently contribute nothing). After hearing the teacher’s complaints of insufficient pay, Christie shot back “"Well you know what? Then you don’t have to do it," later adding, "Teachers go into it knowing what the pay scale is."
Back in April, Christie told the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board “I said all during the campaign last year that I was going to govern as if I was a one-termer. And everybody felt that it was just stuff you say during a campaign to sound good. I think after the first 12 weeks, given the stuff I've done, they figure: 'He's just crazy enough to do it.’”
Don’t look now, but this might be change you can believe in.
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