Gov. Chris Christie - What Leadership Looks Like

Articulate fiscal hawks like Paul Ryan in the House and Chris Christie as Governor of New Jersey give a glimmer of hope that our deeply listing ship of state might yet be righted. I have blogged on Ryan here. Today, from Plumb Bob Blog, comes a post on Christie's actions to date and his most recent speech to the assembled Mayors of New Jersey. This from Plumb Bob Blog:

Speaking, as I was this morning, of politicians with the stones to make the necessary cuts in spending…

Mike Shedlock (with a hat tip to Michelle Malkin) reported on a remarkable speech by New Jersey’s new governor, Chris Christie to the New Jersey League of Municipalities, that illustrates what Real Men® who hold office will have to be doing for the next several decades.

He minces no words:

• government programs will have to be cut

• government salaries and benefits will have to be cut to the size and scope of comparable private sector salaries and benefits

• government-worker unions will have to cede power

• tax increases are not an option, and

• politicians will have to behave as though the next election does not matter.

In just five, tense weeks of holding office, he already has actions to match his words; budget officers showed him 378 ways to freeze spending to close a $2.3 billion gap in a $6 billion pool of money in the budget, and he signed 375 of them. . . .

Unfortunately, Gov. Christie's speech is not on YouTube yet, but it is on video here. It is well worth the time to listen. Christie shows what leadership looks like. Compare and contrast that with the left's (and some on the right's) treatment of Sen. Bunning for merely having the temerity to suggest that the left, having just paraded in front of the cameras in their new fiscal hawk costumes after passing pay-go, actually pay for yet another extension of unemployment benefits. That is the opposite of leadership. Unfortunately, it appears to be pervasive throughout Congress and the Executive Branch today.