From now until Election Day, Americans across the country will have the pleasure of getting to know New Jersey’s newest Republican Governor, Chris Christie.
Elected in 2009, the former U.S. District Attorney rode a wave of anger and discontent towards politics as usual in the Garden State to defeat a sitting Democrat Governor – not an easy feat to accomplish in a state that hasn’t elected a Republican statewide since 1993.
Since then, Christie’s stock has been the rise not just in New Jersey, but in states across the country. Given his notoriety, it should come as no surprise that Christie is being tapped to hit the campaign trail for Republican candidates running in 2010.
Christie represents a new breed of Republican leaders. His no-nonsense, just-the-facts approach is not just refreshing in the age of political sound bites, but more importantly has proven to be quite effective in governing. When the history books are written, his tough-love, unapologetic approach to politics may prove to be just what the doctor ordered for New Jersey and just maybe, the nation as a whole.
Perhaps Christie’s greatest achievement since taking office has been his tireless efforts to address New Jersey’s fiscal crisis; which has slowly been moving towards the proverbial tipping point for years, without any real effort to prevent the inevitable.
It has been an open secret in New Jersey for years that the state’s public pension system has been grossly underfunded and in dire need of reform. It has been well known for years that New Jersey’s Council on Affordable Housing (COAH) was not just a poor mechanism to promote affordable housing, but was a huge unfunded mandate on municipalities that resulted in higher property taxes. And it has been known for years that the catch-all solution to any budget shortfall in New Jersey was to raise taxes – especially on the “rich.”
We now find New Jersey’s culture of excessive tax and spend policies finally coming back to haunt the state. New Jersey now has the highest state and local taxes in the country, and, according to the Tax Foundation, is the least friendly business environment in the country. Furthermore, a recent study found that more than 300,000 households left New Jersey from 2004 to 2008, and took $70 billion in wealth with them.
While Christie is not the first governor to inherit a fiscal disaster, he is the first in recent memory to deal with such problems head on, and to do so in a frank, honest and collaborative manner. Instead of wishing away the problems of excessive spending and taxation, he asked lawmakers to stop “protecting their piece of turf,” and to “join the sacrifice, come to the center of the room and be part of the solution.”
By June, Christie had successfully navigated the choppy political waters in Trenton to make fiscal reconciliation a reality in New Jersey. Working with Democrats in the state legislature, he successfully passed a budget that closed the state’s $11 billion shortfall by slashing spending across the board. Even more impressive, he did it without adding any new taxes or raising existing ones.
As Christie takes to the road the next couple months to campaign for GOP candidates, this is certainly an accomplishment he’ll want to highlight. This will not only provide him the opportunity to discuss a success story in New Jersey, but to demonstrate to the rest of the country what it takes to work in a collaborative way with ones political enemies.
What Christie has shown the country, is that it is possible for Republicans and Democrats to work together to address some of the most pressing issues of our time. Most importantly, he’s done it all by being honest. He’s spoken soberly about the problems facing New Jersey and he has offered sobering solutions to fix them. Put simply, he has offered a rational approach in a time when everything that happens in politics seems to be irrational.
There is no doubt in my mind that once Americans get to know Christie they will be impressed by New Jersey’s governor. I firmly believe Christie is a powerful asset for the Republican Party not just in the midterm elections of 2010, but in the 2012 elections and beyond.
