Friday, January 04, 2013

NJ Gov. Christie scolds the fiscally sane

Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey used to be a Republican. But he turned from endorsing Mitt Romney for president and embraced - literally - President Obama just before the election. Today he continues his move away from conservative principles by scolding those who would dare be wise with the voters' money.

His disdain for the Republicans at IBD

"There's only one group to blame," the New Jersey governor said of the Sandy relief bill that was not included in the fiscal cliff deal, "the House Majority and John Boehner."

But why would a responsible legislative body load an essential bill like the Sandy relief with mega bucks for everyone:

The Sandy damage is $20 billion. Why spend another $40 billion on unrelated things?

Democrats had expanded the legislation during a markup to include not only areas affected by Sandy, but also to provide money for all "storm events that occurred in 2012 along the Gulf Coast and Atlantic Coast within the boundaries of the North Atlantic and Mississippi Valley divisions of the Corps that were affected by Hurricanes Sandy and Isaac."

… To start, the relief bill provides some $28 billion for future "disaster-mitigation" projects — spending that at the least is not a middle-of-the-night emergency.

The bill also allocates $100 million for the repair of all 265 Head Start centers around the country. Some Head Start centers in the New York-New Jersey area may have sustained some hurricane damage. But this is, again, a huge cash infusion to the $8 billion a year day-care program that exploits a tragedy.

Goodbye, Gov. Christie, we loved you when you were a Republican.

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