I sort of forgot that Chris Christie was still the Governor of New Jersey and an active politician until this week, so quiet was he on policy and bombast.
But now he’s back.
His first foray was to emerge with a set of checks made out to suburban school district students for $6,599 each. This was his way of solving the school funding problem that has vexed governors for the better part of 40 years. Christie’s solution was, in essence, to tell the students who live in New Jersey’s cities to either go to a Charter School, move, get different parents, or suck it up and try to learn in a class with 34 other students because Christie’s plan would mean a bunch of school closures.
To the suburban districts, the message was much less harsh: Your property taxes will go down and you can continue to have fine schools. What I really like is that the amount of aid isn’t a round number. In fact, I think if Christie had consulted Donald Trump, the price would have been $6,599.99. The pennies add so much class.
And speaking of Christie and Trump, the other information that emerged this week is that the Governor is being vetted for the Vice-Presidency. Yes, I’m still scared of ISIS, but this potential pairing comes in a close second (and tied, by the way, with the thought of Newt Gingrich being VP). Christie has evidently been giving Trump political advice ahead of the GOP’s Cleveland Convention, weighing in on the recent firing of Trump’s campaign manager and moderating Trump’s speeches so they include more substance and less invective. OK, that last one isn’t working out too well, but Christie is taking his job as manager of Trump’s transition very seriously.
Which brings us to this weekend’s crisis in New Jersey over the Transportation Trust Fund which, I am told, is out of money because the Legislature hasn’t raised the gas tax to fund it. Of course, it’s really Christie’s problem because instead of agreeing to the gas tax increase in return for an end to the inheritance tax, which Christie has been running on forever, he tried to make a different deal to agree to the gas tax, but lower the sales tax by 1%. That would create a huge hole in the state budget. When the state Senate balked at the deal (both Republicans and Democrats opposed it), Christie threatened to shut down road projects over the weekend. Which would throw a bunch of people out of work. And seriously compromise driver safety. And make him less popular than he already is.
In years past, even though I didn’t agree with much of what the Republican politicians wanted to do, I could at least see their arguments and follow their thinking. Not this year. The party’s done blowed itself up. And Chris Christie has his hand on the dynamite plunger.
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