The Chris Christie Dance

This morning I read an article from the Newark Star-Ledger about the upset of the Democrat who is majority leader in the New Jersey State Senate as a result of the line item vetoes issued on the budget of that state. Senator Sweeney said that he was outraged with the Christie line item vetoes. In a statement like the one that got mark Halperin tossed off MSNBC, Sweeny called Christie a "rotten prick". (No word yet if MSNBC will now bar Sweeney from coming on the network.) According to Sweeney, Christie vetoed all sorts of expenditures contained in the budget that had been passed, and Christie did that without first speaking to Sweeney. Sweeney also accused Christie of intentionally hurting the poor and the sick in order just to take out his anger at various legislators. Sweensy said that Christie reminded him of Mr. Potter, the villain in "It's a Wonderful Life".

The Star Ledger reporter revels in the anger displayed by Sweeney. He gets in on the act by calling the Republicans in the legislature "bobble head dolls. We never hear the Christie side of the dispute at all. It is clear nevertheless that Sweeney's main beef with Christie is that Christie made the cuts without first consulting him.

So what is the reason? The article does not tell us, but here are the facts. In New Jersey, the Democrats in the legislature came up with their own budget proposal. Christie suggested that they get together and come up with a joint proposal that both he as governor and they as the legislature could endorse. That effort for a joint budget never happened, however. When the effort to get the pension and healthcare costs of public employees was completed last week, there remained only two days until the budget was legally required. As a result, the Democrats just passed their own budget and sent it on to Christie. In other words, despite a request from the governor to consult about what the budget would contain, the Democrats ignored Christie and passed their own budget. That left Christie with the power to use the line item veto to prune those items out of the budget that Christie did not want. It is no surprise that Christie did just that. And when Christie exercised his veto, he gave the Democrats in the legislature the same consideration that they had given him when he suggested that they reach a joint budget proposal: none. So Sweeney is upset that the governor treated him exactly the way that Sweeney and his colleagues had treated the governor.