Last night 60 Minutes ran an excellent piece on the budget crisis many states are facing. No surprise, a lot of air time was given to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie as he is not only speaking the harsh truth about his state's finances ~ virtually non-existent ~ but is actively trying to turn things around by making courageous decisions as well. Witness his controversial decision to bag a construction project, building a train tunnel between New Jersey to Manhattan, that would have provided 6,000 construction jobs along with who knows how many paper pushers carrying around clipboards and looking busy.

It's around 13 minutes long but well worth watching if you haven't seen it, especially the interview with the financial forecaster who predicted the 2008 crash long before anyone else saw it coming, and now believes we're headed for another disaster because of the upside-down state budgets.



One thing that isn't mentioned in the 60 Minutes report is the reason why state employee and teacher pensions, among other similiar budget items, have gotten so out of control. The old career-politicians-beefing-up-their-constituency-with-taxpayer-money obsession. In short, politicians-money-votes.

When Governor Christie decided not to proceed with the tunnel project, he broke that cycle, at least for himself.