

"To the little people!"

(Reuters/Jonathan Ernst)



Much is being made today, and justifiably so, about New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (R) and his somewhat absurd use of state resources to pop in on his son's high school baseball game. While the use of the taxpayer-owned helicopter to enter the stadium was a nice touch (and a whale of a dramatic entrance, no doubt), what really makes the story sing was his use of a government car to travelfrom where the helicopter landed to the bleachers where he sat, flanked by state troopers acting as his security detail.

Then, like a true baseball fan, he bolted the game in the 5th inning, so he could hustle back to the governor's mansion, where he was meeting with Iowa GOP donors and activists once again beseeching him to run for President.

When this story exploded this morning, I couldn't help but find it oddly familiar. Sure enough, Christie's penchant for using state resources for his convenience was indeed an issue back in the 2009 gubernatorial campaign:

Newly released travel records show that Chris Christie occasionally billed taxpayers more than $400 a night for stays in luxury hotels and exceeded the government's hotel allowance on 14 of 16 business trips he took in 2008. "Generally, U.S. attorneys, assistant U.S. attorneys and all federal staff stay within the government rate," said Justice Department spokeswoman Melissa Schwartz. "The government rate is not a suggestion, it's a guideline."



Christie's excuse for taking the helicopter was that his schedule was too tight to permit him to do otherwise (though only the donor's meeting afterward was on his public schedule).

The "I had no choice" rationale is pretty similar to his excuse in 2009 when confronted about his pricey lodging. Then, he argued that he had tried really hard to find hotel rooms within government guidelines, and simply couldn't (a fact that was skewered by Barbara Morrill here at Daily Kos at that time).

The bottom line is that when Republicans like Chris Christie talk about cutting spending, it should be self-evident at this point that they are not talking about multimillion dollar helicopters at their disposal, or town cars and government employees detailed to the task of driving them 300 feet.

They are talking about frivolous things like the salaries of those overpaid teachers, and whatnot.