As New Jersey’s governor begins the second year of his second term, admirers and detractors are divided.
Some want Chris Christie to run for president. Others aim to force him to hike the gas tax or explain why he went to a Dallas Cowboys game — hoping this will damage him as a GOP presidential contender.
We, too, have a wish: that he spell out what it will take to fix the state’s pension mess, and how it will be different from 2011, when an important but insufficient reform was hailed as a cure — though it was really just a step in the right direction. (On Thursday, the state actually found itself arguing in court the reform was unconstitutional.)
In a State of the State speech clearly aimed at a national audience, Christie rightly called his underfunded pension system an “insatiable beast.”
To close its $90 billion shortfall, he said, would require every family in the Garden State to write a check to Trenton for $12,000.
But the governor was short on specifics about what he intends to do about it.
Now, it’s unlikely Christie has either the time left in office or the bipartisan support he’d need to fix this problem before he leaves Trenton. But the least he can do is to speak honestly about the extent of the problem — and especially the pain it will require to make it go away.
If anyone can do tough talk, surely Christie can.
Gov. Christie is absolutely right to point out that the pension crisis was caused by irresponsible decisions by previous governors and lawmakers. Still, he’s governor now.
And while it’s not his fault New Jersey has a pension system in crisis, it’s his responsibility to show how to fix it.