National news stories about New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie fall into two categories: stories about Chris Christie, and stories about people who criticize Chris Christie. This New York Times profile of Connecticut Gov. Daniel Malloy falls into the latter group:
But what is most striking about Mr. Malloy, a Democrat, is that just six weeks after taking charge of such a mild-mannered state, he is publicly taking shots at his celebrated counterpart in New Jersey, attacking his politics and policies, his intellect, even his personality.
“Being bombastic for the sake of being bombastic,” Mr. Malloy said, “has just never been my take on the world.”
Most of this is style and partisan difference: Malloy is a Democrat, Christie is a Republican, and they tend to disagree. That said, Malloy makes a few points that extend beyond Christie and to the political conversation writ large:
Nor is he shy about trying to avoid public-sector layoffs, which would result in the opposite of a stimulus, he has said, since teachers and clerks spend most of what they earn.
“I'm not sure that some governors just don't want to lay off people for the sake of laying off people and being able to say they did,” he said, speaking of those who may have their sights on seeking national office, say in 2016. “I think there's a certain collection of merit badges that's going on here.”
Exactly. Christie's moves against unions and public employees have less to do with boosting New Jersey's prospects and more to do with demonstrating his willingness to be "tough" and make the "hard decisions." Indeed, this goes beyond Christie; in general, the elite conversation on budget cuts takes place in a world devoid of people, where it's a mark of "seriousness" to support sharp cuts in existing social services, as if the outcome wouldn't be a measurable increase in human suffering. Freddie DeBoer wrote about this yesterday, and his post is worth reading in full:
I mean, from reading online today, you'd be hard pressed to know why we have Social Security and Medicare at all. I'll tell you why: because our winner-take-all economic system leaves defenseless, impoverished people in its wake. We have Social Security because the sight of so many elderly people left literally homeless and starving , too old and weak to work, was unseemly to an earlier generation that was willing to take less for themselves to provide for others. We have Medicare because it is an obscenity for a country responsible for the atom bomb and the moon landing and the Hoover Dam to allow suffer and die from lack of health care access due to the vagaries of birth and chance. That's why those programs exist.
To David Brooks, Ruth Marcus, Andrew Sullivan and others, our willingness to suffer through "austerity" is a sign of moral worth and national fortitude. That this is unnecessary and a recipe for actual human misery is secondary to the desperate want for a moral crusade of sorts. For my part, I'd rather we treat the debt as what it is -- a bunch of numbers -- and actually worry about the millions of Americans stuck with high and persistent joblessness.
