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We’re becoming a couch-potato nation, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie lamented yesterday.
A “paternalistic entitlement society” is to blame, he said during a speech at the George W. Bush Institute Conference on Taxes and Economic Growth in Manhattan.
“I’ve never seen a less optimistic time in my lifetime in this country,” the Republican big declared before a GOP audience at the New-York Historical Society.
Former President George W. Bush lauded Christie’s “enormous personality” in introducing the man he nominated to be a US attorney.
The Texan two-term president said his home state has taken note of Christie, adding, “We admire the courageous stance you take” and praising Christie’s “belief in the individual.”
The Garden State first-termer, considered a rising national Republican star, explained the issue in simple terms.
Government is now telling people, “‘Stop dreaming, stop striving, we’ll take care of you.’
“That will not just bankrupt us financially, it will bankrupt us morally, because when the American people no longer believe that this is a place where only their willingness to work hard and to act with honor and integrity and ingenuity determines their success in life, then we’ll have a bunch of people sitting on a couch, waiting for their next government check,” he said.
The root of the problem: politicians’ hunger to please.
“I think politicians get themselves into the biggest trouble when they care more about being loved than being respected,” said Christie, who turned down GOP entreaties to run for president this year and endorsed former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
“That’s why we run up these deficits we run up. That’s why we can’t say no to anything, because we care too much about being loved.
“I’m loved enough at home, believe me — on occasion,” he added to laughter.
“My mother told me a long time ago, ‘Chris, if you have the choice between being loved and being respected, take respect,” he said. “Because if you’re respected, true love may happen. But love without respect is always fleeting.’
“Now, of course, she was talking about women. But I think it applies equally to politics,” he explained.
Touting his record in New Jersey, he declared, “We’re trying to set the example for the rest of the country,” then joked to two of his Southern counterparts that he would “trade my right arm to come deal with Tennessee and Oklahoma rather than deal with New Jersey.”
But he insisted he’s no hard-liner.
“Compromise is not a dirty word,” he said.
Christie has worked with the Democratic-run New Jersey Legislature to slash public-employee pensions and other costs, and has battled with the teachers union over education policy.
The conference was part of a Bush Institute initiative to promote sustainable 4 percent economic growth.