NR: His tax-and-spend habit receives a necessary rebuke from a fellow state Democrat.
The now-infamous image of Governor Chris Christie seated on New Jersey’s Island Beach during a 2017 government shutdown — alas, some mental images never go away — has proven to be a foil for the agenda of current progressive governor Phil Murphy.
The photograph was fatal to Christie’s public image in the state: Memes littered the Internet featuring Christie and his beach chair pasted into famous works, including Seurat’s Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte and Da Vinci’s Last Supper. Democratic assemblyman John McKeon was stunned by the intensity of the public outcry, insisting “that should never happen again.” New Jersey residents were furious to see Christie sunbathing on a beach that had been closed to the public — during one of the busiest holiday weekends of the summer — because of the shutdown. It’s now something of a statewide proverb: After “beachgate,” shutting down the government in New Jersey has become political suicide.
Such are the dynamics facing New Jersey governor Phil Murphy, a former Goldman Sachs executive and Boston native, who desperately wanted to bolster his progressive credibility by adding a “millionaires tax” to New Jersey’s already-expansive list of burdensome taxes and fees. Chief among those are the state’s exorbitant property taxes, which often provide the lone funding for local school districts. New Jersey is hemorrhaging money.
This is a familiar story in many blue states nationwide, which are experiencing similar upheaval and out-migration. Connecticut, for instance, has struggled to tame its mammoth pension liabilities, and has seen a large decline in adjusted income, wreaking havoc on the state’s budget. Republicans have been generally loathe to point this phenomenon out, which is particularly infuriating given the massive political hay Democrats have made off a budget shortfall that happened in Kansas several years ago. (Too many Paul Krugman columns have been haphazard jeremiads against Sam Brownback and the 2012 Kansas legislature.)
John Ekdahl Sr., a former Republican mayor of New Jersey’s Rumson borough, told me that the Murphy administration has adhered to the current progressive catechism: New Jersey is now a sanctuary state, illegal aliens can now obtain driver’s licenses, and Murphy fought (and failed) to legalize marijuana. These actions, combined with the state’s high taxes, have caused a groundswell of distaste and anger with the administration. A grassroots movement is apace, Ekdahl told me, to recall Murphy. While it would seem a prime opportunity for state Republicans to rebuff the governor’s agenda, it’s another Democrat — Senate president Stephen Sweeney, a card-carrying steel-union member — who has led the charge to thwart the “millionaires tax” item in the latest budget. more here
Dumb phuck did not like what those greedy millionaires, who paid for Murphy’d election, had to say.
Yeah, that photo of Christie on the beach was a bad look. You know what else is a bad look? AOC trashing her own country with a Starbucks in one hand, an Iphone in the other, while climbing into an Uber. Or Kristen Gillibrand yucking it up in photo ops with Harvey Weinstein and Bill Clinton, then asking for Al Franken’s head. Or Elizabeth Warren telling people of accomplishment that they didn’t build that, while committing cultural appropriation on a college resume. Every dang one of the 20 something mental midgets on the DNC stage commit “bad looks” daily.