Plain talk from a politician

It is hard these days to look at the headlines over at Memeorandum and not feel depressed before even reading the articles that accompany the headlines.  But every one in a while there is a glimmer of hope.  I caught one such glimmer earlier when I came across a post about New Jersey Gov. Chris Cristie's speech to 200 mayors at New Jersey League of Municipalities.    Consider this:

When I went into the treasurer's off in the first two weeks of my term, there was no happy meetings. They presented me with 378 possible freezes and lapses to be able to balance the budget. I accepted 375 of them.


There is a great deal of discussion about me doing that by executive action. Every day that went by was a day where money was going out the door such that the $6 billion pool was getting less and less. So something needed to be done.

People did not send me here to talk, the people sent me here to do. So we took the executive action we did to stop the bleeding.

Well knock me down with a feather.  Here is a guy who knows what he was hired to do and he is determined to get that job done.  How rare is that in a politician? 

Politicians know that when people say that they want the budget balanced, deficits wiped out and taxes cut that what they mean is do it without affecting me.  People will flip from being fiscal hawks to MC Hammer singing Can't Touch This and back again without a hint of irony.  In return, politicians, ever mindful of their long term goal-perpetual re-election, take the least painful road to voter happiness.

Along comes Christie and he tells his mayors that everything is on the table, everybody is going to suffer and nobody is going to be happy.  Or as Fuzzy would say, screw the scalpel, Christie is revving up the chainsaw.  No spoonful of sugar.

Come November, we need a bunch of Christies on the national level.