Chris Christie: I'm Halting A Major Project Because We Can't Afford It.
Democrats: What Did He Say? His Lips Are Moving And Sound Is Coming Out But It's Not A Language We Can Understand

The government should stop doing something it doesn't have the money for? What kind of crazy talk is this? It's like Chris Christie is from another planet or something.

Christie from earlier this week.

Declaring he would not move forward on a project he could not afford, Gov. Chris Christie said today he was the one who put the brakes on the $8.7 billion trans-Hudson rail tunnel.

The governor, in a press briefing, said he liked the idea of the tunnel, but not if he can’t pay for it.

"And if I can’t pay for it, then we’ll have to consider other options," he said, making it clear for the first time the project was in serious jeopardy.

..."It went from $5 billion to $8.7 billion in what was clearly a rush by the Corzine administration to have gold shovels and put them the ground and try to get (former Gov. Jon) Corzine re-elected. That obviously was less than successful," Christie said. "And I’m concerned that their evaluations of price of this project was as successful as his re-election campaign was."

Today the Democrats shot back. Budgets? We don't need no stinking budgets!

Warning that a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity may be squandered, state and federal elected officials today urged support for an $8.7 billion railway tunnel under the Hudson that could be killed over rising costs.

Gathered in front of a portal to the tunnel being built in North Bergen, Democratic Senators Robert Menendez and Frank Lautenberg joined other federal and state lawmakers to sharply criticize Gov. Chris Christie's temporary suspension of the massive project.

"The message is pretty simple," said Lautenberg. "We don’t want to be just another parking lot for New York City and that’s what’s going to happen if we don’t get this tunnel done."

..."We need to find a way to make this work," said Menendez, adding that Christie always had known the project’s cost, but suddenly raised red flags after initially supporting it.

Yeah, reevaluating something when new and bad information comes in? That's just crazy talk.

The feds actually want to know how the state will cover any over runs on the already ballooning project. Lautenberg and Mendez don't care, they are worried that stopping could cost the earmarks they've already lined up. I guess they'll worry about the rest, later.

You simply couldn't dream up a more perfect example between fiscally conservative management of the public fisc and the old school, 'just spend!' approach.

posted by DrewM. at 02:28 PM

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