CHRISTIE MAY BE GOING AWAY SOON, BUT NJ'S BUDGET SHORTFALL ISN'T

For Immediate Release:

(Trenton) -- John Currie, Chairman of the New Jersey Democratic State Committee, is highlighting the fact that Governor Christie is skipping town as an staggering $807 million budget shortfall looms.

As news stories highlight, New Jersey’s already-low credit rating was recently downgraded for the fifth time during Chris Christie’s tenure, in part due to the "scale and belatedness" of the $807million hole in the state budget. One might expect that under these circumstances, their governor would be rolling up his sleeves, meeting with legislators, and looking for ways to improve the state's “sputtering" economy. However, if one's governor is the scandal-plagued Chris Christie, that expectation would be wrong.

As the Associated Press reports, “trailing in fundraising, Maine Gov. Paul LePage hopes a visit by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie this week will raise campaign cash - and rally his conservative base.” Apparently, when the going gets tough, the toughs go to... Portland, Maine.

"With all due respect to my friends in New England, right now, New Jersey's governor should be focused on ledgers and liabilities, not lobsters and lighthouses. He needs to get his priorities straight. The budget situation in New Jersey is real and it is not going away," said Chairman Currie. "It is time for Governor Christie to drop the fundraising junkets, and start getting down to business -- the business of fixing our state's troubled economy."

America Thanks The Tea Party? [video]

Actor, voice over artist and Tea Party gadfly, D.C. Douglas, released another video on Friday nght thanking the Tea Party for its contributions to the debt ceiling debate. Immediately upon it's release, his video took on even greater meaning.

Though this video's release occured at roughly the same time that Standard & Poor's credit downgrade for the US became official - it was mere coincidence. Twitterverse, however, picked up on the video's sentiment and began forwarding it to friends as way of expressing their less-than-warm-n-fuzzy feelings reagrding the Tea Party's hand in the credit downgrade.

Apparently this was not without some merit. In S & P's statement, they write "[T]he downgrade reflects our view that the effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policymaking and political institutions have weakened at a time of ongoing fiscal and economic challenges to a degree more than we envisioned..."

In essence, Congressman John Boehner chose to move into the far right Tea Party's territory rather than into the Republican mainstream. So, in effect, it seems even more fitting that America should Thank the Tea Party!