Sour Grapes: Chris Christie Hurts Lt. Gov’s Campaign to Succeed Him

Ryan Hutchins reports in Politico on the “contentious relationship” between New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno who is seeking to succeed him.

From Politico:

[Christie and Guadagno] have squabbled over Christie’s decision to raise the state’s gasoline tax, to spend $300 million renovating the Statehouse and to sit with his family on a shuttered state beach in the middle of a government shutdown.

Now, Christie is casting doubt on a central plank of Guadagno’s platform: That an audit of state government could find some $1 billion in savings and pay for much of her plan to reduce property taxes.

“I just fundamentally disagree with her on that,” Christie told POLITICO after an event at the Roosevelt Hotel in Manhattan. “It’s not there.”

Guadagno, who has conspicuously distanced herself from the unpopular incumbent, has made “audit Trenton” a campaign mantra and the answer for much of what ails New Jersey. She says it would help her fund numerous policy proposals, most notably a “circuit breaker” that would cap the property taxes of many homeowners.

The proposal has led to questions about why such an audit hadn’t been done over the last eight years if it could have such a profound impact.

Read the rest here.