New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has been in the news for multiple things but the latest is the most bizarre of them yet.
If you followed the NFL football season of last year with any merit of interest, you saw plenty of Gov. Christie enjoying his Dallas Cowboy games in person. Whether they took place at home, at AT&T Stadium, schmoozing and hugging Jerry Jones, or on the road at places such as Green Bay for the playoff game, MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ or in Philadelphia, he was there to take in all the action the games had to offer.
Today’s news though shed more light on the fact that Christie was enjoying much more than just the games itself. The governor treated himself to quite the amount of food and drinks at each of these games he attended, apparently all on the backs of the New Jersey taxpayer.
If your waiting for some Christie jokes based off of this from me, yes the possible jokes from this are endless but you will have to go and make them up yourself or go check Twitter out, where they are pumping them out at a fast and funny rate.
According to the Washington Post, a New Jersey Watchdog group was able to find that Christie spent a total of $82,594 on food and drinks alone at the NFL games he attended in person. To break this down even more, just at the Jets and Giants home games he was in person for, he spent over $1,400 on 58 separate occasions at MetLife Stadium. That is a lot of snacks and drinks for one person to consume and drop that much money on.
Now I am not one to judge how another person eats or what they choose to eat but when you are in an official position like Christie is, using taxpayer money to enjoy a hot dog and beer at an NFL game feels like all sorts of wrong from a taxpayer and citizen of the state he governs. He makes a nice salary as top dog in New Jersey, he could have easily afforded to cover the food and drink himself without having to now face this latest gaffe in the public eye.
The people who own and work at those concession stands must be happy to know how much they have been able to get from the Governor’s pocket, but that is about the only groups happy right now about this whole situation.
In a state filled with problems and people struggling to make ends meet, that $82,594 seems like chump change in the grand scheme of things but it is something that could have gone to much better causes throughout the state. One that comes to mind for me is Sandy relief efforts which continue to be ongoing and feature people in need of help to recover and rebuild their homes and lives.
Now the debate of him going to these games in the first place has been a hotly debated topic in the past with his trips to Arlington to see his favorite team in the Cowboys. That was thankfully covered and not put at the feet of taxpayers to have to pay. He should go along the same-line here and just cover the costs himself.
He had to know when people found out about this that they would be very upset and disappointed in him to do such a thing to the people who elected him to Governor twice and people who stayed loyal to him throughout his tenure so far.
People in the state of New Jersey already put up with the highest property taxes in the country by far, the last thing they needed to know about is where part of the money they send to the state has helped Christie enjoy a bag of popcorn and an adult beverage at select NFL games.
If Christie has the common sense that he showed on previous occasions in his political career, he will quickly will take out a check and make this $82,000 plus bill go away as quickly as possible before it gets any more attention than it already has nationwide.
