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Governor Christie took his $32.5 billion budget to a national audience after slashing the Democrats' proposed pension payment and vetoing two tax increases that would have funded it Monday evening.
Christie pledged to push for further changes to the state’s public employee pensions and health benefits plans during an appearance on CNBC’s Squawk Box, but as he has done in recent months, he offered no specifics.
“The fact is we need to be talking about this and what you’re going to see me do all summer is be out across New Jersey making the argument that we need to fix this system or it will eat us alive,” Christie said. “We need to talk in stark plain, understandable terms to people.”
Using his line-item veto authority Christie reduced the pension contribution from $2.25 billion to $681 million. He cut funding for women’s health care, a tax credit for low-wage workers and funding for legal service for the poor. The governor also vetoed two revenue bills, which would have increased the tax on income over $1 million for three years and raised the corporate business tax for one year.
“I’ve had to veto income tax increases four of the last five years,” Christie said. “You know folks don’t understand that you have to keep yourself competitive from a tax perspective and that’s why what I’ve tried to do.”
The governor also responded to Democrats who say they don’t trust him when he calls for changes to the pensions because he didn’t live up to 2010 and 2011 laws that required the state to pay more money into the system.
“For people in the Legislature, they can say whatever they want,” Christie said. “When you’re the executive branch, you actually have to govern and governing is not a static operation. So when revenue comes in for the month of April, $700 million lower than projected by us and $600 million lower than projected by the Legislature, then you’ve got to make some changes.”
Christie sidestepped questions about Monday's Supreme Court ruling exempting companies with religious objections from providing contraceptives under President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act.
Christie says there are more important challenges facing the country.
Much of the interview focused on whether Christie plans to run for president.
“I was elected to a second term in New Jersey and I haven’t made the decision whether I’m going to run for president or not,” Christie said.
But while the governor said he’s still mulling whether or not to enter the 2016 presidential race, he repeatedly held himself up as an example of how a Republican can win in a general election.
Christie, who is chairman of the Republican Governors Association, noted that he’s been to 19 states since December and that he’s been well received even in southern conservative states such as Tennessee.
While he said he has no control over whether the George Washington Bridge scandal, which has clouded his second term, is behind him, he did note that the question does not come up in other states.
Asked how a Republican candidate can bring together the factions in the party and win over swing voters, Christie offered himself as an example.
“Well listen, we did it in New Jersey last year, an enormously blue state,” he said. “We won 61 percent of the vote statewide, we won 58 percent of the female vote, we won two-third of the independent vote, 53 percent of the Hispanic vote. So it can be done and the way it can be done is telling the truth.”
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