Chris Christie Quotes

I've done a contract with my district. I have term-limited myself. I am not taking the pension. I am not taking pay raises, and my family and I are bringing our own health care to Washington, D.C. And my dad taught me as a kid to lead by example - Congress should not have anything better than the American people.

I took on pension reform, health care reform, and leave reform - all of those tough issues that so many elected officials prefer to kick down the road to the next generation. But that's not who I am. I am not persuaded by what is politically popular but what is best for the citizens of Baltimore.

The Europeans waited so long that they are impacting people who depend on their pensions. We are still early enough to fix it for the next generation. A few states have started scaling back their programs, while others have come hat in hand for billion-dollar federal bailouts.

I know there's a great deal that Arnold Schwarzenegger could teach me about making movies. There's a great deal I could teach him about the fiscal reforms that are needed - desperately needed - to set California back in good order.

If Congress wants to mess with the retirement program, why don't we let them start by changing their retirement program, and not have one, instead of talking about getting rid of Social Security and Medicare that was robbed $700 billion dollars to pay for Obamacare.

I think that all areas of the budget have to be scrubbed. Clearly the entitlement issues have to be reformed and that's an issue that's going to require I think some strong bipartisan cooperation and leadership.

At the insistence of the Bush administration, Congress in 2006 passed legislation that required the Postal Service to prefund, over a 10-year period, 75 years of future retiree health benefits.

Pension reform can be hard to talk about. In the long run, reform now means fewer demands for layoffs and less draconian measures in the future. It's in the best interest of all Californians to fix this system now.

So, in Europe, they're cutting people's retirement and health benefits. And that's what we want to avoid from happening. They're raising taxes, entering a recession. That's the kind of economic program that President Obama has put in place.

I respect the state workers and I respect their unions, but we simply can't afford to pay benefits and pensions that are out of line with economic reality.

A failure to act is a terrible, stunning legacy for any leader. But far worse when it is the president of the United States. And that's the point driven home by Romney's selection of Ryan, who dared to lead when Obama did not.

When I came into office, I could have kicked the can down the road for a little while, or I could do the right thing.

If you set as your goal to roll back the size of government, you have an obligation to answer the tough questions and show real courage, not just appeal to ideology. Treat the voters like adults.

Several unions have agreed to larger employee contributions for their members. Taxpayers are living with cuts and making sacrifices to deal with the reality of California's budget crisis, state workers are going to have to do the same.

We need to strengthen and save Social Security for today's workers. If we don't act now, this system, born out of the New Deal, will become a bad deal.

We can't reform mandatory spending in this area until we first deal with ours. I tell my colleagues, 'Let's get the moral high ground and demonstrate that we want to make changes to our pension, and then we can deal with the big problems.'

If you want to know why Republicans and conservatives are in a political crisis, you need only consider the fact that the Right's deeply held view now boils down to this: Taxes should not go up on the wealthy, and your health benefits should be cut.

You can make tough decisions that I believe voters for years have asked us to do.

Public employee unions, in their defense, say politicians have unfairly made them into simplistic bogeymen, responsible for problems that have myriad causes. Not all government workers receive generous pensions, they note.

While there are no easy solutions to this problem, the Deficit Reduction Act gets us started in the right direction by beginning with the most obvious, commonsense reforms to save taxpayer dollars.

I know where I'm going and I have told the French. I am sure if hope is there, we will be able to put France back on its feet... to live better in five years than we do today.

Clearly, Mayor Bloomberg did some things right. I think he did a very good job on public health. He did a very good job on environment. I think he was right to achieve mayoral control of education. I don't think he then applied it the right way.

Aside from the poor example it sets, the federal government enables reckless spending on public-employee pensions by offering hope of assistance from Washington if things get bad enough.

I look forward to working with our leadership team to advance the causes of smaller government, lower taxes, eliminating terrorism, and providing affordable health care, among other issues.

Fixing health care and fixing the economy are two sides of the same coin.