I don't think there's anybody in America who thinks my personality is best suited to being Number Two.
Mom spent the time that she was supposed to be a kid actully raising children, her younger brother and younger sister. She was tough as nails and did not suffer fools at all. And the truth was she could not afford to. She spoke the truth, bluntly, directly, and without much varnish. I am her son.
Today we must make a pact with each other to end this reckless conduct with the people's government.
Leadership is not about me, it's about our country.
Everyone wants to demagogue everyone else. That may be good politics, but it's awful policy.
The three top issues have to be restoring jobs and private sector job growth to our country, getting the entitlement mess under control, and restoring back to our country a sense of self-confidence that Americans can achieve whatever we want to achieve.
You can't lay back and wait for somebody else to do it. And I think if the president's made a mistake here, it's this laid-back kind of approach where he's waiting for someone else to solve the problem.
Our party has failed in going in to those places because we`ve said, well, we don`t get instant gratification back. So therefore, why go there. And we need to go there, show up and campaign in places where we`re uncomfortable.
Higher taxes is the road to ruin. We must and we will shrink our government, and that means making some tough choices, tightening our belts.
The truth was you can't continue to spend the kind of money our spending on all these entitlement programs. I think we need more people in public life who are willing to say, no, we can't afford certain things. No, we can't do certain things.
A retired teacher paid $62,000 towards her pension and nothing, yes nothing, for full family medical, dental and vision coverage over her entire career. What will we pay her? $1.4 million in pension benefits and another $215,000 in health care benefit premiums over her lifetime.
People have an absolute right to believe what they want to believe and to say what they want to say, and churches have an absolute protection to preach and do and not do whatever they choose to do within their houses of worship. But nondiscrimination laws apply to the commercial marketplace and they do protect all of us.
Our state is in crisis. Our people are hurting. Now is the time when we all must resist the traditional, selfish call to protect your own turf at the cost of our state. It is time to leave the corner, join the sacrifice, come to the center of the room and be part of the solution.
I am pro-life, I believe in exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother. That's my position, take it or leave it.
They said it was impossible to touch the third rail of politics, to take on public-sector unions and to reform a pension and health benefits system that was headed to bankruptcy. But with bipartisan leadership, we saved taxpayers $132 billion dollars over 30 years and saved retirees their pensions. We did it.
When people run a business and open their door to the public, they must serve the public. That doesn't mean they can't say whatever they want to say. It doesn't mean they can't believe whatever they want to believe. Those are protected also. But businesses must serve the public. And that's a principle that we fought for in this country over many, many decades, when some were invoking religious freedom as an excuse to deny people on the basis of their race, on the basis of their religion, on the basis of sex and on the basis now of sexual orientation. Let's not confuse one thing with the other.
I said we are going to balance an $11 billion budget deficit in a $29 billion budget, so by percentage, the largest budget deficit in America, by percentage, larger than California, larger than New York, larger than Illinois. And we're going to balance that without raising taxes on the people of the state of New Jersey.
And I just think that we're at a point in our economic life here in our state - and - and, candidly, across the country, where increased taxes is just the wrong way to go. The people of our state are not convinced that state government, county government, local government has done all they can with the money we already give them, rather than the money that we have...
Is there any wonder why we are in such big trouble? Any question why the people don't trust their government anymore, and demand a change?
I'm not in the business of satisfying everybody. I'm in the business of trying to satisfy the people who elected me governor.
And I think what people in New Jersey have gotten to know about me over the last decade that I've been in public life is what you see is what you get. And I'm no different when I'm sitting with you than I am when I'm at home or anyplace else.
We're telling small-business owners that not only are we going to raise their costs by a buck and a quarter, but we're also going to raise it with these cost-of-living adjustments. Here's what's going to happen: They're going to have to lay people off.
These esoteric, intellectual debates-I want them to come to New Jersey and sit across from the widows and the orphans and have that conversation.
Here is their plan. Whistle a happy tune while driving us off a fiscal cliff as long as they are behind the wheel of power when we fall.
But our leaders of today have decided it's more important to be popular, to say and do what's easy, and say yes rather than to say no, when no is what is required.
