Gov. Christie Slaps Deluded Spendaholics

[Ed Hudgins]

Gov. Christie Slaps Deluded Spendaholics

By Edward Hudgins

August 29, 2012 - Ever see someone driven by booze, drugs, gambling or some other obsession and destroying family and friends as a result? Ever want to see someone close to that person grab him by the collar, slap him and say “Wake up! Pull your head out of your butt and look at what you’re doing! Destroying yourself is one thing. But I’m not gonna let you destroy the rest of us. Get the outta here and clean up your act!”

In his Republican Party convention speech, that’s what New Jersey Governor Chris Christie essentially did to the tax-and-spendaholic Obama administration. He’s not going to let them destroy the country. But to turn the country around, Christie also explained how Republicans must keep voters from being seduced into becoming willing enablers in their own destruction.

Christie explained that his Sicilian mother told him it is better to be respected than to be loved because “love without respect was always fleeting, but . . . respect could grow into real, lasting love.”

When he became governor, Christie didn’t seek to be loved by voters by telling them that the tax-and-spending binge of his Democratic opponents could continue. But Christie explained that his critics said “it was impossible to cut taxes in a state where taxes were raised 115 times in eight years. That it was impossible to balance a budget at the same time, with an $11 billion deficit. Three years later, we have three balanced budgets with lower taxes.”

Christie’s reality orientation is most welcomed as he attempts to puncture the Obama administration's delusion that they can continue their tax-and-spending binge while avoiding American bankruptcy or impoverishing future generations.

However, the rhetoric of Christie and other Republicans about “saving Medicare” itself needs more reality focus. It is right to keep some system functioning for those already in it or soon to be there. Those seniors were forced to pay into the system for decades. They've build their life plans around it. And the creation of Medicare nearly five decades ago destroyed the private health insurance market for retirees which might have offered them an alternative.

But while some Republican reform plans offer steps in the right direction, in the long run the goal should be to get the government out of the healthcare business entirely.

Christie explained that the Obama administration believes “seniors will always put themselves ahead of their grandchildren. So they prey on their vulnerabilities and scare them with misinformation for the cynical purpose of winning the next election. Their plan: whistle a happy tune while driving us off the fiscal cliff, as long as they are behind the wheel of power.”

Christie responded that seniors want these programs “secured for their grandchildren. Seniors are not selfish.” But “selfish” isn’t the right word. What Christie and the Republicans should hope is that seniors are not stupid.

They should hope that seniors understand that Medicare cannot continue on its current path without going over that fiscal cliff. But they themselves need to understand that for the grandchildren of those seniors to be both secure in their retirement and to be autonomous in the whole lives, Medicare and other government entitlement programs should be replaced by free market alternatives that Republicans tend to applaud in every other sector of the economy.

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Hudgins is director for advocacy at The Atlas Society.

[Brant Gaede]

WTF? It's the Republicans who've been spend, spend spending too.

And they will keep doing it.

--Brant

[Ed Hudgins]

So you're saying that Gov. Christie in fact increased spending in New Jersey?

Beware of attributing the actions--spending more and more of other people's money--of some members of a group--Republicans--to all members of the group. I was as critical of Bush administration spending policies as anyone. And Paul Ryan himself voted for bailouts. What we should do is hold Republicans to their "let's cut spending" rhetoric.

[Brant Gaede]

So you're saying that Gov. Christie in fact increased spending in New Jersey?

Beware of attributing the actions--spending more and more of other people's money--of some members of a group--Republicans--to all members of the group. I was as critical of Bush administration spending policies as anyone. And Paul Ryan himself voted for bailouts. What we should do is hold Republicans to their "let's cut spending" rhetoric.

Dunno and don't care about the governor particularly. He's not on the ticket, regardless. I'm talking about the fuzzy-headed betray-the-tea-party political whores in Washington. Of course, it seems the tea party is betraying itself.

The radical vision of Ayn Rand has been replaced by either war-mad neo-cons or the go-along-to-get-alonger critters inhabiting the national legislature.

In fairness, Rand herself set the whole thing up supporting Nixon after saying politics was way too soon with Goldwater 1964. Atlas Shrugged was replaced by Objectivism was used to blow off libertarians leaving them to Rothbard and philosophical ineffectiveness and to blow off conservatives leaving them to the disparaging anti-intellectualism of Buckley. A few liberals like Edith Efron came on board. She didn't last very long. Then Rand blew off students of Objectivism when she blew off Branden by blowing off the cover of their Big Lie. What Rand wanted was the sanction of big name intellectuals or businessmen or even the President of the United States, which she considered her rightful due after slaving 13 years writing her great save-the-world novel. In a way she was right. But the ticker-tape parade won't be happening for a while. Her truly great accomplishment was throwing down that gigantic moral-intellectual boulder right onto the middle collectivism's bloody highway in the 1950s and 60s. Her essential innocence was reflected in not properly noting the role of envy and cowardice and tribalism that saturated and saturates the left. If she had she probably would have killed herself or turned to drink.

I hope Obama loses. I hope the bastard is crushed. Then comes R-R. Out of the fire and into the pan, damn! damn! damn!

--Brant

no where to run

no where to hide

the next war is coming from the sky

no more money for anything more but no need to see the gore

fly flyboys, FLY!

[Brant Gaede]

All Objectivist forums are quasi-conservative. By blowing off libertarians Objectivism blew off the radicalism of the Founding Fathers and their classical liberalism.

--Brant

real conservatives aren't fooled; they know God!

[Selene]

Excellent analysis Brant!

In fairness, Rand herself set the whole thing up supporting Nixon after saying politics was way too soon with Goldwater 1964.

Atlas Shrugged

was replaced by Objectivism was used to blow off libertarians leaving them to Rothbard and philosophical ineffectiveness and to blow off conservatives leaving them to the disparaging anti-intellectualism of Buckley. A few liberals like Edith Efron came on board. She didn't last very long. Then Rand blew off students of Objectivism when she blew off Branden by blowing off the cover of their Big Lie.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Ed,

I enjoyed Christie's speech. It wasn't rabble-rousing or Obama-bashing so much as philosophical on individual responsibility and small government, with a big touch of personal stories to make it poignant.

(Heh. Poignant is an adjective that does not go often with Gov. Christie.)

I am very pleased that so much individualism philosophy is being discussed in the lion's den. I believe we can thank Ayn Rand for the emotional push (from her fiction that just doesn't stop selling) and people like Ron Paul for getting the ideas on the table in the political venue. I'm talking about a broad view--the mainstream influence.

You keep reminding people about the nature of these broad influences in your articles.

I think that's cool. Nobody ever says it, but I see what you are doing. Your work keeps deepening the freedom groove in the culture.

So keep on plugging, Ed.

You're doing a great job.

Michael