New Jersey or California: a fork in the road for government reform

Here in California, it used to be commonplace for disaffected voters to long for a figure like Rudy Giuliani, who could sweep into office and restore the tarnished luster of the Golden State. In fact, that's what many Californians thought they were getting with the election of Arnold Schwarzenegger to the governorship in 2003. That experiment, however, failed to produce anything like the results of Giuliani's, particularly after the Governator fell captive to faddish third way statism in his later years in office. These days, the unsatisfied Californian is more likely to point to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie as an example of the kind of leadership he wishes he had. In today's Wall Street Journal, Bill McGurn makes a compelling case as to why that is.

From the opening of the piece:

In his January 2011 inaugural address, California Gov. Jerry Brown declared it a "time to honestly assess our financial condition and make the tough choices." Plainly the choices weren't tough enough: Mr. Brown has just announced that he faces a state budget deficit of $16 billion--nearly twice the $9.2 billion he predicted in January. In Sacramento Monday, he coupled a new round of spending cuts with a call for some hefty new tax hikes.

In his own inaugural address back in January 2010, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie also spoke of making tough choices for the people of his state. For his first full budget, Mr. Christie faced a deficit of $10.7 billion--one-third of projected revenues. Not only did Mr. Christie close that deficit without raising taxes, he is now plumping for a 10% across-the-board tax cut.

Now more than ever, the states truly are playing out their roles as the "laboratories of democracy." In New Jersey, the experimentation is promising. In California, however, it's beginning to look like the island of Dr. Moreau.

New Jersey or California: a fork in the road for government reform

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