State-level financial decisions don’t have to be political, but they often are anyway.
So when New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie put together a panel to come up with proposals for reforming the state pension system, many critics said the panel was constructed in a way that satisfied Christie’s political needs.
Columnist Charles Stile put that sentiment to paper earlier this month, and his words echoed the thoughts of many of Christie’s critics:
In reality, the nine-member panel has a short-term political objective — salvage Christie’s latest crusade to squeeze cost-saving concessions from New Jersey’s 770,000 public workers and retirees.
This new panel, whose members have résumés reaching from Wall Street to the Ivy League, will give Christie some much-needed cover, a chance to say that dramatic ideas to cut pension and retiree health benefits are not the ideas from a potential Republican presidential candidate, but the ideas of some of the nation’s best and brightest technocrats.
But Christie, as well as the panel members, have held steadfast to the idea that their proposals will be removed from anybody’s personal politics. The Star-Ledger reports:
[Panel Chair Thomas J.] Healy stressed that the commission is evenly split — three Republicans, three Democrats, and three independents — and that politics won’t be part of its process.
“We’ve got a group of people who are very smart,” he said. “We’re balanced. The two meetings and two conference calls we’ve had so far have been enormously apolitical. Which is the goal.”
[…]
Kevin Roberts, a spokesman for Christie’s office, defended the panel.
“The entire commission, Tom Healey included, is a group of extraordinarily well-respected and accomplished professionals who are free from politics,” Roberts said.
“Tom’s only charge is to take a cold hard look at the facts and he has helped call on some of the foremost experts on these matters to do just that.”
The panel has said its recommendations could come as soon as October, but it could be later. Their first report is due in September.