christ christopher be yourself because then tomorrow you don t have to worry about remembering who you pretended to be yesterday. i think it was pretty good advice so i think i ll follow that advice. it s served me pretty well. reporter: he was born and raised in newark as the oldest of three children. he met his wife mary pat in school and later got his law degree at seton hall. after a barnstorming campaign christie successfully unseated jon corzine in 2009. we re going to have our work cut out for us. reporter: after being sworn as the 55th governor. new jersey you voted for change and today change has arrived. reporter: america came to know him as the politician with the no-nonsense attitude. i sat here stood here and very respectfully listened to you. if what you want to do is put on a show and giggle every time i
to it. reporter: what did you think of president obama s leadership during the government shutdown? i didn t think he showed much. you know, he kind of was sitting back letting things happen. i thought it was very political. i think everybody was playing politics, because you re the executive. if you re waiting for congress to lead, you re going to wait for a long time. the executive needs to lead. god bless you. thank you so much. reporter: in the finals hours of his re-election campaign christie stopped at this diner, i asked him about his personal and highly publicized weight loss battle. couple people talking about you look great. how do you feel? how is your health? i feel really good. i mean like we re a little bit more than halfway to my goal in the last eight months so that s really good. it s a great feeling and it s hard work but i feel like for the first time i ve got a pathbay. which is really nice. reporter: carol you may remember this little chapter in the 2
legislature already worked with him on changes in the pension rules toç bring that back into balance. i think he can build a coalition. as fars attacks he s going further if as far as taxes he s going further. you will see the rates make it a competitive state. he s going to put a lid on the amount property tack go up in one year. new jersey one of the top 10 heavily taxed counties in the united states, speaking of two current residents and one former resident. what are the lessons here for other states? the lesson for state government not just new jersey other states like calibosnia and new york, the reason this may work is the public sector has so graphically separated from the private sector. one of the things that governor christie is proposing the teachers contribute 1.5% of salary for their health care benefits as opposed to zero. in the private sector everybody contributes.
make. we are back with dan henninger and james freeman and bill mctkpweurpb joins the panel in the campaign christie was under womening i would say but he has come out roaring. is this a moderate republican he booked himself into a great position. he has a séave that is is so bad that he can he knows there is going to be pain and people know it. he ruled out the tax increases. he had to go after spending. he deliberately left himself no choice but to take on the spending. not just spending but the kind of dysfunctional spending that new jersey has had that fuels local spending and local property taxes. paul paul: some of the teachers union saying let s raise income tax. why not do that? they are running ads onç that millionaire surtax new jersey math starts at $400,000 as income.
he would like to transfer to a defined contribution plan. he said if they did that you wouldn t need cuts in education. i think it is aç strong argument for him and other governors. most amazing thing we learned when governor christie visited us this week in the newark, new jersey school system they are spending $22,000 per student only a quarter of them are graduating. paul: money is not a problem in newark. do you think the democratic legislature is going to give ground on this? i i think it might happen this time. the teachers union do not have a sympathetic view. i have a lot of family members andç relatives that have taken pay freezes and seen benefits cut and these people are arguing we should be immune. it is not an argument that flies when you have a budget gap more than a third of your budget.