RUSH: Governor Chris Christie. This guy needs a lot more attention. He needs a LOT more attention. People need to listen to this man, the governor of New Jersey, and what he’s doing and how he’s going about it. He was on Cavuto yesterday on the Fox Business Network. We have some sound bites. Cavuto said, ‘Folks are saying that you side with the rich. When you vetoed a ‘millionaires tax’ that actually would have affected those earning always little as 400 grand, you were on the side of ‘fat cats.’ New Jersey Education Association president said, ‘The choice could not be more stark: tax cuts for millionaires or full school funding for New Jersey kids.”
GOV. CHRISTIE: Raising taxes on businesses in New Jersey, which that would have done, and individuals in New Jersey is not what’s gonna make our private sector grow. We already have the worst tax burden of any citizens in America, when you combine all of our taxes. So raising taxes on anybody… Because, believe me: Today they’re going to raise taxes on those people? Next year they’ll come back and raise taxes on somebody else, and then it’s going to get into your pocket. Someone has to stand the line and say, ‘No, we can do this by cutting spending and reducing the size of government.’ That’s what I was committed to doing. So these other things are just politics and false choices, and I think they thought they had a governor like Jon Corzine who when they pushed I will fall over. They misevaluated this governor.
AUDIENCE: (wild applause)
RUSH: Governor Chris Christie in New Jersey, defending his choice to cut taxes, to cut spending. Cavuto said, ‘You know, governor, in growing more famous in this job in the few months that you’ve been at it, you strike a lot of people as like a bull in a China shop. And I could tell you — you and I are neighbors in New Jersey so disclosing that for the record here — just down the street, everybody in town, people say, ‘What a nice guy, what an affable guy,’ and then they see you chewing out some union dude or they see you jumping ugly on a reporter and they say, ‘Hey, is it the same guy?”
GOV. CHRISTIE: I’m passionate about what I believe in, and I also think that the public needs to start being treated like adults. You know, politicians too much, in my view, they cow.
AUDIENCE: (applause)
GOV. CHRISTIE: They try to figure out, you know —
AUDIENCE: (applause)
GOV. CHRISTIE: They try to figure out what everybody wants to hear. They try to figure out what he need wants to hear. I want to treat New Jerseyans and I am treating New Jerseyans like adults, and that’s not just my constituents. It’s reporters, it’s union leaders. If I feel something, I’m going to say it.
RUSH: New Jersey Governor Chris Christie! Cavuto said, ‘Well, many union leaders have targeted you in attack ads that have gone viral nationally. One of the things that typical union members will say or the ones that they talk to for their ads is, ‘I paid into these benefits. These are benefits I was promised years ago and now along comes Chris Christie to say, ‘Well,’ I’m ‘not going to get them.’ He’s broken a covenant, he’s broken a promise.’ Never mind it was never your covenant or your promise, you’ve inherited a lot of this. What do you think of that argument, governor? The public workers feel that you have a bull’s-eye on them.’
GOV. CHRISTIE: The public sector has been shielded from this recession in New Jersey. We’ve continued to give public sector workers four and five percent increases, despite the fact that there’s zero inflation. We’ve continued to say that the teachers union is right, that teachers in the main should have to pay nothing — nothing! — for family health coverage, medical, dental, and vision. I mean, there’s no one in the world who has this deal, and the property tax payers — the ones who have lost their jobs, the ones who have had their hours reduced, the ones that are paying more for their own health benefits if they have them — they’re the ones picking up the tab. Now, listen: ‘Shared sacrifice’ is shared sacrifice, and the public sector unions have been shielded from that, and it’s got to stop.
AUDIENCE: (cheers and applause)
RUSH: Right on, right on! Right on, right on, right on. Here comes the truth! You see? The truth works! Just stand up to these people. He’s winning every fight in New Jersey. He’s winning every one. Just stand up to them and tell the truth. They haven’t shared sacrifice. They haven’t shared in this recession. They haven’t been in pain. They talk about shared sacrifice? Well, here it is! Cavuto said, ‘People compare you to Reagan. What do you think of that?’
GOV. CHRISTIE: I have great admiration for President Reagan, and I think he was the first person I voted for for president. My first vote in 1980 when I turned 18 years old was to vote for Ronald Reagan. And it’s still one of the proudest votes I ever made because he understood leadership. He understood how to lead a country, how to lead a people and how to inspire and how to be tough and how to fight for the things he believed in. And so in many ways he’s one of my role models, and so any time my name gets put in the same sentence with Ronald Reagan it’s a bad day for Ronald Reagan, but a good day for me.
RUSH: (laughing) I don’t think Reagan would say that. I don’t think Reagan would say that at all. And, let’s see, we have one more. Here we go. Final one. Cavuto says, ‘Look, there’s talk of Governor Christie maybe being a President Christie. What do you say to that?’
AUDIENCE: (wild applause)
CAVUTO: Don’t let the applause —
GOV. CHRISTIE: Yeah, yeah.
CAVUTO: — prevent an answer.
GOV. CHRISTIE: Yeah. No. Listen. Not going to happen.
CAVUTO: What do you mean, ‘Not going to happen’?
GOV. CHRISTIE: You know, I want to be governor of New Jersey. I ran for governor of New Jersey.
CAVUTO: But —
GOV. CHRISTIE: You have to be really, in your gut and in your heart, ready to be president of the United States if you decide to run for that — and I simply do not have the desire to do it, nor do I think I’m to be [president].
CAVUTO: You already now, governor, have more experience than Barack Obama when he announced.
AUDIENCE: (cheers and applause)
GOV. CHRISTIE: Well, that doesn’t mean that I’m ready.
RUSH: What an answer! Just because I have more experience than Big Ears doesn’t mean that I’m ready. There you have it, Governor Chris Christie of in New Jersey.