NJ Governor Chris Christie Takes Vacation As Blizzard Hits State, Takes Heat For Being Absent During Crisis

GOP darling and NJ Governor Chris Christie is suspiciously absent these days, while a blizzard has just blasted through his state. Instead, he went to Disney World. Don’t worry, though, his #2, the Lieutenant Governor, is in charge and getting things done. Oh, wait:

New Jersey's Constitution, in its wisdom, dictates that someone in the state must always be ultimately responsible for its bureaucracy. Normally, that person is the Governor. But when the Governor leaves the state's borders, the Constitution devolves that responsibility upon another person. Until a few years ago, the first person in line was the State Senate President, which meant that anytime the Governor left, our state government became a parliamentary system*. Then we amended the Constitution and created the position of Lieutenant Governor to prevent that sort of problem. Now it takes the absence of both the Governor and the Lieutenant Governor for us to devolve back to the parliamentary system.

That is what we have right now. Chris Christie took his family to DisneyWorld for the holidays and Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno took hers to Mexico, so State Senate President Steven Sweeney, elected by fewer than thirty thousand people, is now simultaneously the leading officer of the State Senate and the state's chief Executive. Paul Mulshine sees this as evidence that Guadagno's political career is limited and sees plenty of mischief for Senator/Governor Sweeney to get into, if he so chooses.

But the problem is not Guadagno's. She was not elected Governor; Christie was. She is second-in-command, in military terms. That means that he does not clear his travel and vacation with her; she clears her travel and vacation with him. While authority can be delegated, responsibility cannot. And so it was Governor Christie's responsibility to ensure that the separated powers of the executive branch remained separated. Either he should have scheduled his family trip at another time, or he should have been a boss and told Guadagno that she could not travel at the same time as he was.

For someone who seems eager to exercise the power of the bully pulpit at public events; the reticence to exercise the legitimate powers of his office responsibly is puzzling, and alarming. It is a dereliction of duty and an abrogation of responsibility. Yes, the world will keep turning. But it isn't the Governor's duty to keep the world turning. It is his duty to ensure the administration of the state government and to run the executive branch. Especially in an emergency. Especially when there is almost a week's notice that the emergency is going to hit. It is inexcusable.

If the statewide problem is irresponsibility; then the local problem (here in Jersey City) is one of ineptitude. At this point, there are still streets unplowed. Officially, the city is blaming residents for abandoning their cars, causing streets to be impassible for snow plows. Jersey City officials find this unbelievable. And, I can attest to the fact that in the decade or so that I have lived here, I've never seen cars abandoned in a snowstorm.

Ok, I am usually a big fan of Chris Christie, but this is just ridiculous. I realize that this vacation was planned for quite a while, but he should have postponed the trip, until the emergency was over. The blizzard didn’t just pop out of nowhere. If he had been paying attention to the weather at all, he would have had ample warning.

Let’s not forget that the Lieutenant Governor is on vacation, too. That is just pure stupidity for them to plan their vacations at the same time, regardless of what is going on. Even if it is perfect weather and everything is running smoothly statewide, they shouldn’t go on vacation at the same time. There should always be an executive at the helm, just in case. It makes you wonder, if Christie’s office knew that the Lt. Gov. would be gone at the same time and did they approve it. If they knew it and approved or at least allowed it, it is just beyond incompetence.

Even some conservatives in New Jersey are expressing their displeasure over the Governor’s bumbling of this crisis:

Mr. Sweeney’s graciousness is overshadowed by the sheer incompetence of the Christie administration - incompetence bordering on stupidity. Yes, I know the odds of something unfortunate happening to BOTH the Governor and Lt. Governor are infinitesimal. That’s not the point - and if you can’t see the point you are either blind or a clueless Chris Christie cheerleader.

I could certainly understand if the Governor were already on vacation when a natural disaster hit the state - in the present case, however, there was ample warning days ago (anyone watching the Weather Channel could see the massive storm system crawling its way up the Eastern seaboard) and the Governor had plenty of time to reschedule his Disney World vacation so that he could be close to home in the event some fresh hell revealed itself. Instead, he skipped town a couple of hours before most flights out of Newark were canceled and the storm system descended upon the Garden State - leaving hoi polloi to fend for themselves midst the snowdrifts. Can someone on the Governor’s staff please tell us what the hell he was thinking?

Adding insult to injury, the Lt. Governor likewise skedaddled out of Dodge City, leaving the more curious among us with lots of questions: Is there no reliable communication between the offices of the Governor and Lt. Governor? Was Gov. Christie aware that his second in command would be absent from New Jersey at precisely the same time he was absent? If not, can we expect to see an otherwise useless staff member collecting unemployment checks soon? If so, why did he not importune her to take her vacation after his return?

Imagine if a hurricane was headed to New Orleans again and Obama decided to step out for a couple of weeks the day before landfall, how much hell would come down on him for being absent, during a time of crisis? Bush was chastised just for flying over New Orleans, after Katrina, and not landing to survey the rescue efforts and clean-up, but at least, he did that. Christie is still talking to Mickey Mouse and Goofy in Florida, when she should be back home and talking to people of New Jersey and coordinating an effort to guide his state through this blizzard.

On the other hand, Newark Mayor Cory Booker (D) is doing a fantastic job of trying to take control of the effort in his city. He has been on Twitter all day sending out comfort and encouragement to those affected and asking for people to send him a private message through Twitter, if they are stranded somewhere, and he gets help out to them. In this case, the Governor should take a page out of Booker’s book and be on-hand and more hands-on, when dealing with this crisis.

Six "Gems" From Deficit Commission Including: ObamaCare Savings a Myth, Millions Government Workers Have Privatized Social Security, ETC

The deficit commission that was just released has quite a few goodies in it. AOL’s John Merline wrote about his six favorites in his op-ed, today:

1) The federal government is horribly managed. (I hope that this doesn’t come as a shock to anyone.)

2) Health reform's cost savings apparently were bogus.-(Imagine that.)

3) Millions of workers don't pay into Social Security.-(Apparently, certain government workers can opt-out of the federal social security and privatize it, but the rest of America can’t. What’s wrong with that picture?)

4) The tax code is a hopeless, loophole-riddled mess. (That is why the rich don’t pay as much into the system as they’re supposed to pay. If you can afford a legion of lawyers and accountants, you can pay very little taxes, too. The loopholes should be filled before we should even entertain the idea of raising the tax rate.)

5) Obama is a big spender.(Again, I hope that this doesn’t come as a shock to anyone.)

6) It's actually not that hard to cut the deficit.(Not hard, unless you consider getting the left admit that they were wrong all along and go with what’s ultimately necessary hard.)

Here’s what he had to say about those six “gems”:

1) The federal government is horribly managed. The commission report cites just a few examples, but they are doozies. Did you know, for example, that there are 44 separate federal job-training programs across nine federal agencies? Or that there are 20 different programs all studying invasive species? And 105 programs meant to encourage participation in science, technology and math? Or that few of them can show they are achieving their goals? There are thousands of examples like this, according to the report.

2) Health reform's cost savings apparently were bogus. Remember how Democrats boasted that health reform would cut the budget deficit by $170 billion over the next decade and far more after that? The deficit commission must not have gotten that memo. It says health spending projections under the new law "count on large phantom savings" and the reform law's new long-term care program that the report calls "unsustainable." As a result, Congress will still need to enact "a number of other reforms to reduce federal health spending and slow the growth of health care costs more broadly."

3) Millions of workers don't pay into Social Security. One of the reform ideas is to require newly hired state and local workers to start paying into Social Security. Wait? Isn't Social Security mandatory? Turns out, almost 10 percent of workers don't pay in, since "a small share of states and localities exclude their employees from Social Security" and instead operate their own retirement systems. (Given Social Security's dire financial forecast, one wonders how those workers would feel about that reform.)

4) The tax code is a hopeless, loophole-riddled mess. How else can you explain the fact that, according to the report, you can lower the top marginal rate by 20 percent and still collect an additional $112,533 from the richest 1 percent of taxpayers, simply by closing loopholes?

5) Obama is a big spender. Although President Barack Obama has talked about fiscal discipline -- and set up this deficit commission -- his own budget plan would spend $350 billion more on so-called discretionary programs over the next decade than if the government were just left on autopilot, according to the report.

6) It's actually not that hard to cut the deficit. The report talks loudly about the "painful" choices ahead and how there's "no easy way out." But what the report really shows is that a comprehensive package of relatively modest and reasonable policy changes can bring deficits under control.

This was an all-too rare moment from a government commission. Too bad that it confirms and brings to light all of the conservatives assertions about Obama and the Democrats’ ill-advised policies.

I, also, loved what Nick Gillespie had to say regarding the tax issue. He had some good insight into the debate:

It's a simple, plain, and nearly universally unacknowledged fact that the feds haven't been able to raise revenue much past the 19 percent of GDP bar for any period of time since World War II. Doesn't matter the the top marginal rate is, or the bottom, or nothing. The government is going to pull in just under 19 percent maximum. Some years it might be a bit higher and some a bit lower, but it ain't budging over the long haul (defined as the last 60 or so years). That is the limit of what we can spend if we want to have a balanced budget. Obama's own budget projections have the feds spending more than 22 percent of GDP each year over the next decade. You do the math….

We are in debt because we spend too much, not because we make too little as a country. Let's say it again, this time in bold (I have to unbold): We are in debt because we spend too much, not because we make too little as a country.

Fareed Zakaria, who surely makes well north of $250,000 a year, is welcome to give all his income to a government that has only managed a nominally balanced budget a handful of times since we beat the Axis powers.

But can he have the generosity not to include the rest of us who make far south of a quarter-mil a year in his delusion that higher taxes will mean smaller deficits?

Like Paul Ryan said, “We don’t have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem.” Our government has to learn to live within its means just like their constituents.



H/T to Ed Morrissey.

Government Inefficiency At Its Finest: Women Finally Get Restroom in Congress

emale representatives in Congress a bathroom that they don't have to walk a mile (not literally) to go potty:

Incoming House Speaker John Boehner is tearing down the Parliamentarian's office to build female members of Congress a restroom.

Currently, only male lawmakers are afforded the ability to walk steps from the House floor to use the restroom. Women must walk across Statuary Hall to the Lindy Claiborne Boggs room, but the 71 women who will serve in the 112th Congress will be able to walk out the Democratic side of the chamber straight to the bathroom.

Why didn't Pelosi do this? It took her over three years just to pass the Potty Parity Act, which was supposed to ensure that this was done back in March. Now, it is getting close to a year since then, and it still she still hadn't done anything to get it built. This type of inefficiency is exactly why the people don't want to see DC in charge of anything.