Mike Shedlock
Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis
3/2/2010
In an amazingly candid appraisal of the sorry state of affairs in New Jersey, Governor Chris Christie laid it on the line in a speech to about 200 mayors at the New Jersey League of Municipalities.
The speech is 24 minutes long and well worth a listen because it is both an honest admission of the problem, and a refreshingly accurate appraisal of what the solutions are. He chastised the legislature, unions, municipalities, and affordable housing initiatives while promising to do something about all of those.
Unfortunately I cannot find a transcript, nor is there a YouTube video but you can Watch Christie’s Speech To League of Municipalities on public television. It starts out with an ad you have to listen to, but it quickly picks up once Christie starts speaking. He starts off in fine fashion calling the legislature’s budget “Alice In Wonderland Budgeting”
…We just have to have the courage to go there. What we are doing is showing people that government can work again for them, not for us. Government has worked for the political class for much too long.
There’s no time left. We have no room left to borrow. We have no room left to tax. So we merely have room left now, to do this. We are all reaching the edge of a cliff. And it reminds me a bit of that part of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid where the had a seminal decision to make. So what did they do? They held hands and they jumped off the cliff.
We have to hold hands at every level of government, state county, municipal, school board. We have to hold hands and jump off the cliff.…
…It’s time for us to hold hands and jump off the cliff. It’s time for us to do the difficult things that need to be done and to stop playing the petty politics of yesterday, of lying to the people telling them they do not have to pay for it because someone else will.
We are going to make the leap because that’s what people elected me to do. We are going to make the leap because it is the responsible thing to do. We are going to make the leap and we are going to do it together because that is what leadership demands for us. That is what the responsibility of the offices we hold requires of us.
Forget about the next election. Forget about the next editorial in the newspaper, and forget about the next angry letter or phone call you are going to get from someone who wants something for nothing.…
Read the entire entry at Mish’s.
