The Elephant in the Room: Christie shows how to cut

The G20 conference's final communiqué pledged that the countries gathered in Toronto "will at least halve deficits by 2013." Who expressed concern about reducing spending and, thereby, deficits too quickly? Not the committed socialists of Europe, who are now witnessing the calamitous, continent-wide impact of crippling deficits; they led deficit-cutting efforts at the Toronto gathering.

The main obstacle to global fiscal restraint was none other than President Barack "I will cut the deficit in half in two years" Obama. In spite of his deficit-cutting pledge, Obama still holds fast to the Keynesian idea that government spending can substantially stimulate the economy - even though his $787 billion, deficit-ballooning stimulus plan has completely failed to create jobs or promote economic growth.

In Obama's closing statement at the summit, he seemed to be stinging from the rebuke of his fellow world leaders, whom he had hoped to mesmerize with another of his much-ballyhooed charm offensives. Yet, instead of taking out his frustration on his global counterparts, he kicked the dog at home - the GOP.

"People" - read: Republicans - "should learn that lesson about me, because next year, when I start presenting some very difficult choices to the country, I hope some of these folks who are hollering about deficits and debt step up, because I'm calling their bluff," Obama said. "We'll see how much of that, how much of the political arguments that they're making right now are real, and how much of it was just politics."

Notice the president said "next year." That's because before he left for Toronto, the White House excoriated Senate Republicans for punishing the unemployed and standing in the way of jobs by opposing the president's second stimulus package, which would have added tens of billions more to the deficit.

But just you wait until next year, when I'm sure Obama will then get tougher than nails on deficits. And what do you think these "very difficult choices" will entail? Maybe a tax hike, or two or more?

Of course, big Republican wins in the November elections might make big tax increases impossible for the president next year. Either way, it will come down to what "moderate" Republicans from Democratic-leaning states do when push comes to shove. It always does.

Speaking of pushing and shoving, blue-state Republicans have a new role model when it comes to fiscal responsibility: the Jersey Juggernaut, Chris Christie.

Gov. Christie has gained YouTube fame with his Jersey straight talk. He's been taking on the state teachers' union and the Trenton press corps. And in the face of deficits amounting to more than a third of projected revenues, he has stuck to his guns about not raising taxes, and he actually cut business taxes.

By comparison, the federal budget deficit is almost half of projected revenues. Sounds like Obama has the tougher job - except that he only pledged to cut the deficit in half in two years. Christie put together a plan to eliminate the deficit in one, and it garnered bipartisan support.

Christie has also proposed a constitutional limit on local property-tax increases. If he gets his way, government spending at all levels will go down.

This is an incredible turn of events in a year and a half. Christie has managed to confront the outrageous spending of New Jersey's former governor, Jon Corzine. And he is doing so not with next-year talk, but with this-year action; not with tax increases, but with real, honest-to-goodness reductions in the size of government.

Who would have thought European leaders - those committed socialists who have set aside their dogma to deal with a real-world debt crisis - have more in common with the hard-charging Republican governor of New Jersey than they do with the procrastinating ideologue occupying the White House?