Categories: Bad Deeds

Bad Deed: Chris Christie – The Authoritarian Governor Brags to His Rich Friends

 

How to be a One-Man Dictator in America – At a secret billionaires conference hosted by the Koch Brothers, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie recalled discussing the 2009 budget with his aides shortly after taking office. He claimed to have told his aides, referring to the majority Democrats in the state Legislature as those people down the hall:

“Listen. We’ve got to fix this problem, but I do not want to deal with those people down the hall…

And so they told me, “If you declare a fiscal state of emergency, you can use your emergency powers as governor to impound $2.2 billion in planned spending and balance the budget. And you can do it by executive order.” I said, “Man, I love this state!”

So, I went in my office, all by myself, and set up the executive order, and I signed it. But I thought it would be rude for me not to go down and tell that coequal branch of government what I had just done. [Scattered chuckles.] So I asked them for a joint session speech…I basically said this: “You left me with a $2.2 billion problem. You want me to raise taxes. I’m not going to. I just impounded the money by executive order. I fixed your problem. Thanks, have a nice day.” And I walked out.”

Regards,

Jim

Jim Vogas

Texas A&M Aggie, Retired aerospace engineer, former union member, Vietnam vet, Demcratic Party organizer, husband and father.

Recent Posts

My Most Recent Postings Are Shared at Op Ed News

--------- Check them out! ---------

1 year ago

Preserving Our Democracy – Allegiance To a Nation OR Serving a More Perfect Union

On the one hand, patriotism divides citizens into multiple factions based on variable notions of a nation and its history. On the…

2 years ago

Voters Can Empower and Protect Our Threatened Democracy

Voters have witnessed a long history of peaceful Executive leadership change.  However, we’ve just seen, 1/6/2021, how fragile that transition…

2 years ago

WAR, Civil or World, Enables Hunting Humans

This is about the need for national efforts to stop enabling haters (individuals and political parties) from optimizing their hunting…

2 years ago

Authoritarian Domination by 2030 in US!

In 2030, the entire world is condemned to extreme inequality, slavery, baby farms with women dressed in red and world domination as originally…

3 years ago

Predatory Capitalism: Chaining It?, Embracing It?, Controlling it?, Saving it?, Replacing It!

Any nation with either an authoritarian political system or an authoritarian economic system, like predatory capitalism, is susceptible to totalitarianism.…

3 years ago