HIZONORDAGOV of Jersey, Chris Christie on how to handle a budget

I’ve posted before on my admiration for Governor Christie and the fact he doesn’t back down from a challenge. He managed to get his budget passed without increasing tax rates or new taxes and he is abusing the state legislature by calling them into special session continually to get property tax reform done. Hey Gov, keep them occupied…like children if they are busy they can’t do that much bad.

But one of the things I liked was in Governor Christie’s property tax reform were two exceptions. One for debt service and the other for things the people vote on. Whooo, what a concept. Let the people who pay the taxes decide how they will be spent. I think we should go with this!

From the interview:

That's exactly what my proposal is. Change the constitution and cap it and only let there be two exceptions for that 2.5 percent cap, debt service because you want municipalities and counties to pay the debt back to the people that lent the money to them.

GIGOT: Right.

CHRISTIE: And secondly, voter override. If the voters want to spend more money on property taxes because they favor a particular project or program that costs more, let them decide. But the professional politician deciding has been a failure for 30 years.

GIGOT: But here's the Democrats say. They say Governor Corzine had a cap, it was at four percent. And the Democrats now are saying we're doing better than that. We have a proposal for 2.9. Two point nine percent, 2.5 percent, what is the difference, Governor? Why won't you play ball with our cap? Why go all the way down to 2.5 percent?

CHRISTIE: The problem with their cap at 2.9 is the same problem with Corzine's at four percent. That's all the exception. They had 10 different exceptions to cap, exceptions for health care costs, fuel costs, pension payments. And in fact the best one of it all, the tenth exception is, any money that is spent for the general health, safety or welfare of the town.

GIGOT: Which is just about anything in government.

CHRISTIE: That's exactly right.

The entire interview is a little over six minutes and well worth it.

Damned, he won't run in 2012...I would love to see B Hussein Obama in a debate with this man!