Since taking office, and in his budget address, Christie has repeated -- almost as a mantra -- that fixing New Jersey's budget will involve "shared sacrifices." The good news, though, is that the state starts from an extremely high spending baseline, which is how the tax burden got so out of control. Those "sacrifices" will involve dropping to a spending level that is merely above-average.
So, the next time someone tells you that Chris Christie wants to cut spending "through the bone," remember that New Jersey doesn't have to emulate Texas to shrink tax burdens. If Christie gets his way, the Garden State might someday be a libertarian paradise along the lines of the ("People's Republic of") Massachusetts.
Me: It will be nice to live in a libertarian paradise.
