Why Chris Christie drives New Jersey conservatives up the wall

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By Paul Mulshine/The Star Ledger

I just got an e-mail from Rob Eichmann of Conservative New Jersey that included the letter below our governor sent to an unnamed constituent on the subject of the state Supreme Court's outrageous mandate forcing hard-working suburban Republicans to subsidize day care for the 3- and 4-year-old children of urban Democrats despite a constitutional requirement that public schools provide education only for those between the ages of 5 and 18.

Only Chris Christie didn't phrase it that way.

Instead he sounded like every bit as much a bleeding heart as the Democrat who preceded him.

Here's the letter (see original here):

Office of the Governor

Office of Constituent Relations

Post Office Box 001

Trenton, New Jersey 08625-0001

February 28, 2011

Dear xxxx,

Thank you for writing to express your support of full day preschool. I appreciate hearing your views on this subject.

As you know, given these tough economic times, we had some very tough decisions to make in this year's budget. We had to balance the need to get our State's economy back on track by not raising taxes on our already overtaxed residents, all while making sure we only spend the money we actually have. At the same time, however, we must never forget our obligation to protect important community resources and key programs. That is why I am pleased to inform you that the budget I proposed on February 22nd maintained full funding for the full day preschool programs that have been in place in years past.

I hope this information is helpful. Best wishes.

Sincerely,

Chris Christie

Governor

This sort of thing drives me nuts. Every time I start to think that maybe this guy's not so bad after all, I see something like this. What obligation is he talking about? The governor is under no obligation whatsoever to provide preschool under a constitution that limits public schools to grades K-12.

You could argue that Christie is just making the best of a bad situation, that between the courts and the Democrats in the Legislature, he'd be stuck providing preschool anyway.

But I for one have yet to hear him say he disagrees with the court's edicts on principle.

For more than two years now I've been trying to get Christie to express any idea whatsoever of just how he will reverse the flow of income-tax dollars from the suburbs to the cities. We'll never have property tax relief when an entire county like Morris gets less than a fifth the state aid of a single city mismanaged by the Democrats. That means telling the urban Democratic machine politicians that if they want to provide services like preschool they have to raise their own property taxes to pay the bill.

We can't have preschool and property-tax relief. The $600 million annual expenditure for preschool should be returned to the taxpayers whose income taxes are supposed to produce property-tax relief in their own towns.

By the way, Rob and the lads at CNJ are even tougher on Christie than I am when it comes to this sort of thing. And that's saying something.

And what it's saying is that Christie should forget about trying to build a national image as some sort of conservative when he's yet to build one here in his home state.

http://blog.nj.com/njv_paul_mulshine/2011/03/why_christies_a_conundrum_to_c.html

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Jerry Brown is having the same effect on the left in California. Imagine a governor that actually has to govern.

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Jerry Brown is having the same effect on the left in California. Imagine a governor that actually has to govern.

if only they could all be congressmen.

Edited March 3, 2011 by \