Chris Christie's Lying, Incoherent Letter to Teachers
By now, most teachers in New Jersey have received a copy of a letter, sent at taxpayer expense, from governor Chris Christie. I got mine on Friday, and I've posted it below. After reading it, I thought the same thing I've been thinking while following the Bridgegate trial:
It's impossible to choose between whether Chris Christie and his staff are liars or are incompetent -- they're both.
Of course, Christie has a history of sending teachers letters where he flat-out lies to our faces: back in 2009, during his first campaign, he told us: "I will protect your pensions. Nothing about your pension is going to change when I am governor." But the first chance he got, he jacked up our contributions, gutted cost-of-living increases, made us pay much more for our health care without the benefit of negotiation, refused to follow his own lawand make the pension payments he said he would make.
To make things worse, he then said he had no idea the pension problem was as bad as it was, even though literally everyone who had the slightest interest in the topic knew New Jersey's pensions were headed for disaster. It's incredible a man who ran for governor during the Great Recession would claim he had no clue the pensions were a serious problem for the state.
Again: Chris Christie's not just a liar, and he's not just incompetent. He's both.
Which brings us to his latest, utterly ridiculous letter. How many ways is Christie and whoever wrote this completely lying and
- Christie says the New Jersey Education Association (the state's largest teachers union) has acted "irresponsibly" towardJersey Jazzman: Chris Christie's Lying, Incoherent Letter to Teachers: