Chris Christie gets Airlifted

Chris Christie is telling us to tighten our belts - despite wearing an elasticated waistband himself.

The guy who added a billion dollar tax cut to our state deficit, and screwed our schools out of $400 million in federal funding, managed to demonstrate more hypocrisy this weekend. Our corpulent commander's latest supersized spending involved getting airlifted to his son's high school baseball game.

The state helicopter flew Christie to St. Joseph's of Montvale, which was facing off against his son's school, Delbarton High School. The impromptu chopper landing stopped play, and Chris Christie was ferried from parking lot to bleachers in a limo SUV, flanked by state troopers.

It wouldn't be such an issue if it wasn't for Chris Christie talking tough about cutting the state's unnecessary spending (and for New Jersey's Republicans famously taking Democrats to task for similar perks.) In 2002 governor McGreevey was forced to pay back $18,000 for helicopter trips he'd taken on unofficial business.

With private helicopter rental running at $5,000 an hour, there's no doubt that Christie's little spin added considerably to the already swollen state budget. He can't even use "official business" as an excuse - the only event on his public schedule was a dinner with Iowa Republicans who were trying to talk our girthy governor into running for the White House in 2012.

If Christie is really serious about reining in state spending, perhaps he should put his money where his mouth is and drive himself to his son's games in future, like the rest of us would have had to do.