According to press reports… Prime Minister Christie is disappointed and finds a US State Department report that is critical of his government, outlining alleged corruption and unfulfilled election promises puzzling.
A couple things befuddle me as well:
- It does not appear that the PM offered any tangible evidence that these reports are unfounded.
- The PM offered no suggestions as to how he might correct the problems outlined.
Of course there is no doubt corruption and unfulfilled elections promises are nothing new, but they do seem worse in the last couple years.
Unfortunately Mr. Christie has lost yet another teaching moment.
Had he smiled and thanked the US State Department for their report – even though the US Government has similar issues – if he really wants to deal with corruption in his government that is, he might have been able to get some details from them so he might prosecute some of the corrupt officials?
Thumbing our noses at the beast that feeds us in the form of tourists and Foreign Direct Investment, not to mention supply lines and more, seems like a bad idea to me.
And, the disappointment I can understand, but what the country will do about the problems outlined seems to require urgent attention.
Download the US State Department report here…
As an aside, if there's any interest, Dr. Dan Mitchell outlines the correlation between big government and big corruption here…
