Last year, Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson had some advice for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie: “Find some way to lose weight.” It is advice Robinson gave in his Washington Post column and later on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” His argument was Christie needed to use his weight loss to set an example for a country fighting a so-called obesity epidemic.But Christie wasn’t receptive to Robinson’s criticism. On Wednesday’s broadcast of “Morning Joe,” Christie spoke about an interview he conducted with Oprah Winfrey, where he was open about his weight struggle. However, he also criticized Robinson for being ignorant about certain aspects of that issue.“It wasn’t hard for me,” Christie said. “The fact is she asked me questions, I answered them, and I told the truth and I told people how I feel. It is a struggle. It has been a struggle for me a lot of years. And so, I hope that other people in the country understand. And I appreciate what you all have been doing and when ignoramuses like Eugene Robinson get on your show and start saying the stuff they say about weight and someone should have a salad and take a walk. I mean, you know as far as I’m concerned, guys like that shouldn’t have a platform to speak because they’re so ignorant.”Christie told “Morning Joe” viewers he wasn’t going to hide the fact that his weight issue was “a challenge” and promised to continue being honest about questions regarding his weight.“This is a struggle that people have, like a lot of other struggles that people have in life,” he continued. “I am going to be honest about the things that are a challenge to me. And in any way that helps other people, I’m thrilled by it. But all I was trying to do was honestly answer questions about my life that Oprah asked. Because if you go on one of those shows, you have an obligation to honestly answer those questions.”
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/01/18/chris-christie-eugene-robinson-ignorant-shouldnt-have-a-platform-to-speak/#ixzz1z3C2lGcC
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Get Jeff Poor FeedLast year, Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson had some advice for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie: “Find some way to lose weight.” It is advice Robinson gave in his Washington Post column and later on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” His argument was Christie needed to use his weight loss to set an example for a country fighting a so-called obesity epidemic.
But Christie wasn’t receptive to Robinson’s criticism. On Wednesday’s broadcast of “Morning Joe,” Christie spoke about an interview he conducted with Oprah Winfrey, where he was open about his weight struggle. However, he also criticized Robinson for being ignorant about certain aspects of that issue.
“It wasn’t hard for me,” Christie said. “The fact is she asked me questions, I answered them, and I told the truth and I told people how I feel. It is a struggle. It has been a struggle for me a lot of years. And so, I hope that other people in the country understand. And I appreciate what you all have been doing and when ignoramuses like Eugene Robinson get on your show and start saying the stuff they say about weight and someone should have a salad and take a walk. I mean, you know as far as I’m concerned, guys like that shouldn’t have a platform to speak because they’re so ignorant.”
Christie told “Morning Joe” viewers he wasn’t going to hide the fact that his weight issue was “a challenge” and promised to continue being honest about questions regarding his weight.
“This is a struggle that people have, like a lot of other struggles that people have in life,” he continued. “I am going to be honest about the things that are a challenge to me. And in any way that helps other people, I’m thrilled by it. But all I was trying to do was honestly answer questions about my life that Oprah asked. Because if you go on one of those shows, you have an obligation to honestly answer those questions.”
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/01/18/chris-christie-eugene-robinson-ignorant-shouldnt-have-a-platform-to-speak/#ixzz1z3C2lGcC
As His Optimistic Budget Falters, Christie Comes Out Swinging
By KATE ZERNIKE
Published: June 27, 2012
Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey promised a have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too budget for next year, one that would make the state’s pension payments, increase money for schools, provide drug treatment for nonviolent criminals, restore tax credits for the working poor and give every taxpayer a 10 percent income tax cut.
At $32 billion, the proposal for the next fiscal year — unveiled in February — included the biggest spending increase of any governor in the country. But it was based on the most optimistic revenue projections in the country, too, assuming that taxes and fees paid to the state would rise 7.3 percent.
Now those projections are coming up short. With unemployment in New Jersey still higher than the national average, tax revenues have failed to meet targets for several months in a row. Depending on whether you believe the governor, the nonpartisan legislative office that analyzes the budget, or the rating agency Moody’s, the state will take in anywhere from $704 million to $2.2 billion less than it had anticipated.
But far from backing down, Mr. Christie has reacted in character. He derided the director of the nonpartisan office who downgraded the revenue estimates as a partisan hack, a “Dr. Kevorkian of the numbers.” And he doubled down on his bet, insisting that even with reduced revenue, the state could still afford the $183 million tax cut.
To make the numbers work, he proposed doing what he said he would not: borrowing $260 million from transportation projects that he had planned to pay for in cash so he could transfer money from the state’s Transportation Trust Fund to cover holes in the budget.
The governor, a Republican, had already filled the trust fund with money from a project to build a Hudson River train tunnel, which he canceled in 2010. His budget includes an additional $500 million in other one-time transfers — a tactic he derided as a gimmick when his Democratic predecessors did it.
Democrats, who control the Legislature, approved a budget this week that looks largely like Mr. Christie’s, including the $183 million tax cut, but with this condition: The cut will kick in only if the revenues the governor is predicting come in as promised in January.
Mr. Christie is unlikely to veto the entire budget, which would shut down the government starting Sunday, when the 2013 fiscal year begins. Instead, he will fight the way he typically wins: in public relations. He promises to flog Democrats “all long, hot summer” in town-hall-style meetings, the kind that have made him a YouTube sensation and a superstar of the national Republican Party.
“We’re going on tour!” he declared at the latest one, in largely Republican Bergen County on Wednesday.
But even some in the audiences — almost uniformly adoring crowds — suggest that the governor may be in a bind.
On Friday, at a town-hall-style event in Readington, in well-off Hunterdon County, a man stood up holding a flier that the governor’s staff had distributed, which boasted of a “New Jersey Comeback” that would allow an increase in spending as well as the tax cut.
Wouldn’t this require the kind of borrowing that got the state in trouble before? “I’d like to know what the remainder of the plan will be,” the man said.
Mr. Christie, who typically conducts the back and forth of these events at sitcom speed, was uncharacteristically slow to respond. First he asked to see the flier. He read it while the audience sat silently. Then he summoned his favorite boogeyman, his Democratic predecessor, arguing, “It’s still lower than Jon Corzine’s 2008 budget.”
“We’re not borrowing money to be able to spend money,” he added. “We’re borrowing for long-term capital interests — roads and bridges. Those are the things you should be borrowing for.”
But Mr. Christie has built his reputation on making what he calls “the hard choices.” His early budgets reflected fiscal conservatism: he began paying off pension obligations, required public workers to pay more for their benefits and managed to keep a healthy surplus for a rainy day.
Now, even if revenue comes in as he hopes, he has set the state up for higher debt costs down the road. And the surplus cushion he put in the budget is smaller than that of any other state.
Mr. Christie has had to assume such high revenue in part because of tax cuts he already made. According to the Office of Legislative Services, a cut in corporate taxes cost $70 million in 2012, and next year, will cost $127.5 million. Many wonder why Mr. Christie is focused on an income-tax cut — a woman in Readington asked the governor why he did not cut property taxes, which are a much higher burden.
The income-tax cut would give back about $275 a year to a family earning $100,000. Polls show most residents would prefer a property tax cut. An editorial cartoon in The Star-Ledger of Newark this month caricatured the governor as saying: “I promised you an income-tax cut you don’t need and we can’t afford, and I’m willing to borrow millions and shut down the government to get it!!’” The caption: “Chris Christie: fiscal conservative.”
Democrats insist that the governor has an eye on Tampa, Fla., where the Republicans will have their national convention this summer. Mr. Christie is often discussed as a vice-presidential candidate or a keynote speaker, perhaps to set up a future run for president. A 10 percent tax cut sounds good, but cutting the property tax by that much would cost about $500 million, compared with $183 million for the income-tax cut proposal.
The Democrats argue they are the ones who have actually made tax cuts: among the few changes they made to the governor’s budget proposal is a plan to give municipalities money they had been promised from energy tax receipts, which they can then use to avoid raising property taxes.
The Democrats also restored the earned-income tax credit, which the governor had promised but not included in his plan until 2014. They also voted to give property tax credits of from 10 percent to 20 percent on the first $10,000 paid by people earning up to $250,000.
“We’ve given him true tax cuts on property taxes, and we’ve identified the revenue with which to give them,” said Louis Greenwald of Camden, the leader of the Democratic majority in the State Assembly.
But to assist with property taxes, they voted to raise the marginal tax rate on the state’s 16,000 millionaires, to 10.75 percent from 8.97 percent.
Mr. Christie’s aides say that makes the Democrats’ argument hard and his easy: I want to give you a tax break; Democrats — “Corzine Democrats,” as he has branded them recently — want to raise taxes instead.
Paul A. Sarlo, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, scoffed at that idea. “When you have a responsible plan such as ours, it’s easy to explain,” Senator Sarlo, of Wood-Ridge, said.
“We’ve taken the high road,” he added. “These are his revenue projections; he’s got to live and die by them.”
At a town-hall event on Tuesday in Brick, Mr. Christie referred to Mr. Sarlo with a profanity. It was just a preview of his long, hot summer.
