Gov Christie: Let them eat cake!

[ErikJ972]

Posted: 4/29/10 at 9:58am

Now Christie is cutting funding for free lunch programs in public schools. A program that is mandated by the federal government. While it's true the Feds provide funding, this cut will be a disaster for urban districts like mine where 70% of the students qualify for free meals. For many, it's the only guaranteed meal of the day. We also have a full cafeteria every morning for breakfast, like most urban districts where students rely on the free meal program.
Christie admin plans to cut all State funding to the free/reduced meal program

[adamgreer]

Posted: 4/29/10 at 10:14am

His comments yesterday were even more ludicrous. He chided the students who walked out of classes in protest of his budget cuts and whined that the schools didn't do enough to prevent it and that the students weren't properly punished. I kid you not. He can't take a little of his own medicine, and seems to think the First Amendment only applies to his bully pulpit in Trenton.

He's a sick, sick, sick, individual.

[JerseyGirl2]

Posted: 4/29/10 at 10:36am

I bet Christie doesn't miss a meal.

[Kalimba]

Posted: 4/29/10 at 10:38am

Governor Fat-Ass looks like he ate the cake and then some.

[Marianne2]

Posted: 4/29/10 at 11:23am

The man is just ridiculous. I would love to see him go without lunch for a few days and then go to one of these kid's homes who get free meals to see what they are eating or not.

[ErikJ972]

Posted: 4/29/10 at 11:32am

It's all part of his "shared sacrifice" plan. He likes to cut wasteful programs like feeding and educating kids but increases the staff of the Governor's office by over 2 million.

[Marianne2]

Posted: 4/29/10 at 11:36am

He also seems to like polluting the earth by having a ridiculous fare increase on public transportation. People are not going to be able to afford to go to work.

[ErikJ972]

Posted: 4/29/10 at 11:54am

Yes...apparently his idea of shared sacrifice only applies to the working/middle class and the poor.

[Kalimba]

Posted: 4/29/10 at 12:31pm

Unfortunately the idiots who voted for him have to learn the hard way (at the expense of everyone else).

[madbrian]

Posted: 4/29/10 at 12:52pm

As much as I loathe him, Christie is pretty much doing what he said he'd do. So, either no one paid attention during the campaign, or they were so pissed off at Corzine that they would have voted for anyone with an 'R' next to their name. If ever an incumbent needed to be 'primaried', it was Corzine, but the Dem machine couldn't or wouldn't challenge him. He was virtually unelectable, and took down the party and the state with him.

[ErikJ972]

Posted: 4/29/10 at 1:22pm

I didn't vote for him so I feel free to loathe him as much as I want. His cuts to education have been much more drastic than what he indicated when he was campaigning. He also promised property taxes wouldn't go up this year.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 4/29/10 at 1:33pm

In other news, President Obama thinks that he should decide on how much money a person is able to make or how much profit a company should make.
Link

[ErikJ972]

Posted: 4/29/10 at 1:41pm

Yes, in other...COMPLETELY UNRELATED...news.

[JerseyGirl2]

Posted: 4/29/10 at 1:59pm

When it comes to something political, Goth is like the guy who gets criticized for something he knows he did wrong and then goes, "Yeah, well... your shirt is ugly!"

[TheatreDiva90016]

Posted: 4/29/10 at 2:06pm

No, YOUR shirt is ugly, Goth!
Whatever...
Shut up!

*clicking heels fade into distance*...

[madbrian]

Posted: 4/29/10 at 2:10pm

"Yes, well, I’m polymerized tree sap and you’re an inorganic adhesive, so whatever verbal projectile you launch in my direction is reflected off of me, returns to its original trajectory and adheres to you."

--Sheldon, Big bang Theory

[violet72]

Posted: 4/29/10 at 2:29pm

some more class warfare...he has already pitted the poor and middle class against eachother and people are buying into his plans...he is making sure the poor and middle class can't afford education...so now we are going back to the days before the French Revolution...shall we call him Louis the 16th or 15th? When are we going to storm the Bastille and say enough is enough

I did not vote for this man and I am hoping the people who did realize what a huge mistake they made...they probably will when he looks for his next scapegoat after he is done vilifying teachers and public workers

[doodlenyc]

Posted: 4/29/10 at 2:32pm

I thought glue was from horses...doesnt that make it organic?

Oh, and Christie is a big fat turd. It's going to be a LOOONG 4 years for NJ.

[jasonf]

Posted: 4/29/10 at 6:19pm

I sincerely hope there is a recall long before we ever get NEAR four years.

I certainly didn't vote for him knowing he would be terrible for the state, but I never guessed it would get to this level. Look at the things he said before the election and what he's done since - they couldn't be more opposed.

The amazing thing to me are the people who still support him. Unless they are rich fatcats themselves, do they REALLY think he won't be after them next?

Who knew education and feeding kids who need it are disposable commodities we waste our money on in America? What terrible people we must be.

[adamgreer]

Posted: 4/29/10 at 7:21pm

I sincerely hope there is a recall long before we ever get NEAR four years.

If there was EVER a governor who needed to be recalled, he is it.

In about two years, the chickens will be coming home to roost when the state's standardized test scores (currently among the highest in the nation) fall drastically because of the larger class sizes, fewer experienced teachers (because the ones with the most experience and seniority were forced into retirement), and cuts to funding. When THAT happens, then the sh*t is really going to hit the fan even more.

[Plum]

Posted: 4/29/10 at 8:25pm

You'd have to get the signature of 25% of registered voters in the state in order to recall the governor. Sorry to be crude, but Corzine would have to sleep with a donkey while snorting coke off a (male) illegal immigrant's ass for that to happen. And you can't recall an NJ official in his/her first year of office, anyway.

My favorite part of the governor's office response to the high school student walkout? Blaming it on "spring fever". Way to totally condescending, asshat.

[jasonf]

Posted: 4/29/10 at 9:39pm

Plum, any idea how big that number is?

And do they have to be actual signatures or can it be electronic?

I mean, put the petitions in schools and you'll EASILY get a lot of sigs, but I don't know if that would be enough alone -- unless you get the parents in at open house or something (though God only knows how he would twist that!)

I'm just repulsed that so many people in NJ voted for him. No matter how bad Corzine was, he wasn't MALICIOUSLY evil.

[morosco]

Posted: 4/29/10 at 10:10pm

Now comes the news that Governor Christie has hired a 25-year old man at a $60,000 salary to do blogging and Twitter work. This Director of New Media does not even live in New Jersey. He is a resident of New York City.
NJ Governor Chris Christie Pays $60K for Guy to Tweet

[jasonf]

Posted: 4/29/10 at 10:14pm

That's old news - that was from a couple of months ago...

[Plum]

Posted: 4/29/10 at 10:31pm

There are about 5.2 million registered voters in NJ as of November 2009. 25% of that is about 1.3 million.

Of the 5.2 million:

1.06 million are Republicans
1.7 million are Democrats
2.3 million are unaffiliated.

Are you starting to see the challenge here? You have 320 days to gather those 1.3 million signatures if you want the governor gone, and while I don't know if there's any mechanism that allows for electronic signature-gathering, somehow I doubt it. It would make accusations of signature fraud even more widespread than they usually are with these things.

In the 2008 election, which I'm fairly sure is the highest-interest election we've had in a while, 3.9 million people voted, which was then 73% of the registered NJ electorate. In the 2009 general election that got us Christie? 2.4 million people voted, which was 47% of the registered electorate.

So you'd have to get over half the registered voters who actually got up off their asses to vote last November to sign something as extreme as a recall petition.

For comparison, when Gray Davis was recalled, CA law only required the number of signatures to be 12% of the number of people who'd voted in the last election for governor, or about 900,000 signatures. They needed 1.2 million signatures to ensure they had enough valid ones, ended up getting 1.6 million, and had 1.35 million signatures officially certified as valid.

So in California, which had 15 million registered voters at the time, they managed to get just about the same number of valid signatures for their recall petition as an NJ effort would need in a registered voting population that's 1/3 the size. Good luck with that.

(My numbers are from the NJ and CA election board websites and the Wikipedia article on Gray Davis' recall.)
Updated On: 4/29/10 at 10:31 PM