NEW JERSEY Gov. and Republican star Chris Christie likes to preach the importance of "fiscal responsibility"--including attacking pensions and living standards of state workers.
Of course, Christie doesn't like to practice what he preaches.
In late May, Christie decided to take a state police helicopter to his son's baseball game.
According to the New Jersey Star-Ledger:
"It is a means of transportation that is occasionally used as the schedule demands," said Christie spokesman Michael Drewniak in an email. "This has historically been the case in prior administrations as well, and we continue to be judicious in limiting its use."
The governor had no public events on his schedule, offering no insight to where he might have been traveling from. He had a private meeting at 6:30 p.m. at Drumthwacket, the governor's mansion, in Princeton. He is meeting with a group of Iowa donors who have publicly expressed a desire to persuade him to run for president in 2012.
Christie was ferried to the field in a brand-new AugustaWestland helicopter, purchased at a cost to taxpayers of $12.5 million.
In other words, the reason Christie left the ballgame in the fifth inning had nothing to do with pressing state business. It was so that he could meet with a group of wealthy Republican donors who are attempting to persuade him to run for president.
According to CommonDreams.org's Abby Zimet:
[W]hen some people got inexplicably upset at that crass little matter of the chopper, [Christie] defended its use as "judicious" and refused to reimburse taxpayers. Oh yeah: He's also cutting hundreds of millions of dollars from schools and other vital services--and proposing slashing the maximum income level for getting Medicaid from $24,645 to $5,317 for a family of three. So if you make $6,000, you don't need any help.
Who are these creeps, how do they ever get elected, and have we at last sunk so low and strayed so far from the admirable ideals of compassionate representative government by, of and for the people that we can go back there now, please?
