It’s not enough that Governor Chris Christie is not going to make a full contribution to the state’s public worker pension system, despite promising to do so as a result of his signing the pension and benefits bill in 2011. And it’s also not enough that he continues to blame public workers for the state’s economic and fiscal messes.
It’s far too much, though, for him to blame cuts in cancer research and other programs on the fact that the state’s pension obligation would take too much money out of the budget. Yes, it’s politics. Yes, it’s a tactic to deflect interest and attention away fro the George Washington Bridge scandal, and yes, it’s not beneath a man who will say anything to become 2016-relevant again. But this kind of class warfare is disgraceful.
Blaming public workers and asking them to pay more for their pensions, which would take money out of the economy at a time when he should be stimulating it, continues Christie’s consistent failures on the economy. He could instead be asking the wealthy to pay more to help bail out the state. He could have approved the third railroad tunnel between New York and New Jersey, which would have provided jobs and a needed infrastructure project. He could have raised the nation’s lowest gasoline tax, which not only would have provided funds but would have sent a message that it’s time for New Jersey’s drivers to economize for the environment.
Hell–he could have allowed Tesla to sell some cars in New Jersey.
But no. New Jerseyans are stuck with a governor who hasn’t a clue about how to successfully grow an economy and invest in education. All he has is a surplus of bluster, and that we don’t need.
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