wheres the money Mr President ?
New Jersey Media “Stuck on Stupid” loves Christies attacks on Boehner
January 3,2012
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ , Don’t you just love it the , same New Jersey media figures that wine and pout when Governor Christie unloads on their stupidity are now rejoicing at the prospect that the Governor is currently targeting speaker Boehner with his ire over Sandy Aid .
Mind you these are the same bunch of journalistic inbreeds who spent 3 moths reporting on seats belts for dogs and cats, that was until the Governor told them the obvious that the “Stupid’ doggie seat-belt bill won’t get his backing. ( https://theridgewoodblog.net/stupid-doggie-seat-belt-bill-wont-get-christie-backing/ ) All the while New Jersey-ians suffer with the highest residential property taxes in the nation and the worst unemployment rate in over three decades.
The New Jersey media is quick to point out its been 66 days since superstorm Sandy and no relief in sight from Washington Well its been over 4 years since President Obama was first elected and the USA is still operating without a budget ? And what about education reform, and property tax relief New Jersey Tax payers ,its been closer to 3 years .
Maybe its time to quite playing “cheer leader” and get back to doing your jobs. We don’t blame the Governor for being angry , but we know if Christie targetd the Obama administration with his anger he would be branded a loud mouth “meanie” by the press.
Unfortunately for all the folks hardest hit by Sandy the bill is so loaded with pork projects that they would be better served directing their anger at the Obama Administration, which is hijacking the aid meant for their constituents. According to the Heritage Foundation ” the bill is nothing more than special-interest money fest.”
Again according to the Heritage Foundation ,”The estimate of insured losses from Sandy comes in around $20 billion—but the total aid package proposed is three times that amount. Roughly $28 billion of the request is marked for future disaster-mitigation projects.
The bill includes funding for Head Start, the federal day care program. As Heritage’s Lindsey Burke, the Will Skillman fellow in education policy, explains, some Head Start centers may need repairs from hurricane damage, but handing the program $100 million—as the Sandy aid package would—is a large expenditure that deserves more scrutiny.”
Other questionable items in the package, which have received wide media coverage, include money for fisheries in Alaska, free money for the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and repairs to the Smithsonian. Heritage’s Patrick Louis Knudsen adds that “there is the truly audacious $17 billion in Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds, an embarrassingly transparent slush fund.” ( https://tinyurl.com/agrnpth )
How low can one go ,nothing like exploiting Hurricane Victims to fund special interests and pet projects .
I, for one, am outraged that the government wants to fix things that are broken and invest money in preventing things from breaking again in the future.
As long as Christie is watching where the money gets spent I am all for it. Then again, he still hasn’t dismissed Weinstien from the board at NJT, so who knows what his motivation is. I would like to think that exit 15X would be different if Christie was around during that planning phase, but guess what? Conservatives own businesses! Businesses that benefit from contracts for bridges to nowhere. It’s easy to blame Unions, but face it…if you follow the money it leads to both sides of the aisle.
Rob I do sometimes enjoy your commentary but I would per you stay on point , I got from the post that the aurthur(s) the the dopey NJ media is not happy when christie calls them stupid but they love when he does it to a republican … these are the guys who brought florio , macgreevey and corzine …pretty bad record by any standards
The first part of the piece addressed media bias, which I chose to ignore because the fact is that if Christie attacks Obama and Democrats in general, it is to be expected. Party lines and all that. For him to openly break rank with his own party like he did is indeed more interesting (read newsworthy), especially on the heels of his cuddle-fest with Obama post Sandy. Hence in my view, the media attention is appropriate…a non-story if you will.
I instead chose to address allegations of pork belly earmarks in the bill, which interest me far more as a tax payer who is familiar with the way things get done here in the Dirty Jersey. I am not surprised that there are opportunists who would use Sandy relief as a means to push through funding for which they might have already tried and failed to get pre-Sandy. It’s a flaw in our system and I’m not sure how to fix it.
I find it very interesting that Christie cost the Repiblicans the eklection with all the cozy Obama pictures and now he is attacking the republicans for wanting to make sure that the money goes to the correct people in NJ. The bill that the seante passed has more pork than substance. He should be calling out the senate for such a ridiculous bill. The senate is taking advantage of the devestation in NJ to pay off their cronies. It is time that the people said no to pork. Congress should pass bills that can be read and only address the item of the bill not the add ons that are included to pay off some politicians to get their support of the major items. Christie has lost his chance for any future in politics. I had no idea how small his thinking was until this tragedy happened in NJ. In hindsight he should have had Romney and Obama come to his state. He should be using the media coverage that he is getting now to explain the problem with the bill the senate passed, rather than whipping up the house for not passing such a loaded bill.
We have a MAJOR systemic problem in our government and the stuffing of “pork” into every emergency bill that gets brought up is a sign of the dishonesty and lack of integrity in the system (and the weakness of the “pork” matter to stand on its own). The obvious way to eliminate “pork” is to make every bill stand on its own and require it to provide an offset in revenue. Oh yeah, I think I heard that before. So why isn’t it being done? Because we have the wolf in sheep’s clothing watching the henhouse. There needs to be a NON-PARTISAN “Bill watchdog” (like another CBO?) that looks at every bill and insures that only one item is in it for passage and that there is an offset on the revenue side to pay for it. If not, then it gets rejected. Would that happen in Congress (almost 11,000 bills last year with only 31 rejected!) or the State legislature? Only if an organization runs on a Budget (Oh yeah, the Fed gov’t hasn’t had one for four years) and we have people who have limited terms of office and do more than only “work” to be re-elected. That ain’t never gonna happen, but it’s a good idea. OK, time for day-dreaming is over. Back to reality.
When Katrina hit, President Bush was derided for not stopping for a photo op, told that he hated blacks, didn’t care for poor people, etc. The president made sure that congress swiftly got tens of billions into the area within a month.
Now, Sandy hits, President Obama plays Christie for some pre-election leadership press, hugs a lady to make every cover of the nation’s liberal press and gets re-elected. As fast as Sandy swooped in and left, so did the president. He got what he needed and his new bosom buddy Chris is left at the alter.
Instead of realizing that he was made to be a useful tool for the Democrats, Christie lashes out at Boehner (not that Mr. Speaker is without sin) saying that he and congress won’t let him get a third of the Sandy Pork bill. If he were so chummy with the president, he would give him a call in HI, and ask ‘Can you please address these bozos in congress and get some aid up here? People are hurting.’
Unfortunately the governor is more comfortable playing the victim than being a true leader.