New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (Governor's Office/Tim Larsen)
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was asked Tuesday about his support of a plan to eliminate the free ride benefit for NJ Transit employees. Here's his response.
"All these different kinds of perks that are given to employees just aren't justifiable to the general public. You know we had to raise fares on NJ Transit. We had to raise fares because their fare box had been ignored by the previous administration for their entire time here. YOu know? And artificially used federal stimulus money to keep fares stable. When we came in, NJ Transit was in really bad shape. So what did we do? We made the hard choice, we bit the bullet, we raised fares. I don't think it's justifiable for me to ask a working man or woman in New Jersey to pay these higher fares and then have employees of NJ Transit get it for free. So there's really nothing more complicated behind it than that."