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BY ERIC ARONSON

COMMENTARY

Washington and Trenton. Two cities that define our current politics. Each tells a very different story.

It is not a controversial thing to suggest that Washington D.C. is dysfunctional. We are caught in a seemingly endless spin cycle where the only "change" is from Karl Rove to David Axelrod. It is easy to suggest that the obvious and intense partisanship is the root cause. Partisanship, though, has been an issue since the founding of our Republic. John Adams once warned: "There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties... This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution." Yet prior generations of leaders dealt with the reality of partisanship, and still accomplished great things. No one outside Washington believes that good ideas belong exclusively to any political party.

After being elected promising, among other things, to cut federal spending by "taking a scalpel" to the budget, one of this president's first acts was to sign an appropriations bill that increased federal spending across the board, justifying the increase by calling it "last year's business." While partisans may argue the relative merits, all agree that federal spending has since continued to explode under this administration.

On the health care issue, it is not credible to say that insuring an additional 31 million people will not increase health care costs. Or to say that the legislation is "deficit neutral," when that claim is premised on unrealistic projections, and the anticipated imposition and collection of a host of new taxes for a period of years before any actual "reform" is implemented. It is not credible when one party unilaterally passes an amalgam of more political pork, more spending and more taxes, and labels that "health care reform." Or when the same party dresses the same catastrophically bad legislation with a few "republican" ideas so that Nancy Pelosi can say that it "can be bipartisan without bipartisan votes." More importantly, no reform can be credible without addressing directly the unsustainable and ever increasing costs of health care; the issue that Warren Buffet called a "national emergency" and a "tapeworm eating, ... , at our economic body." Simply put, Washington either does not care what the people think, or it does not think the people are smart enough to understand what is really going on.

Trenton, by contrast, is a city where a new governor has begun to deal with a financial crisis by acting, not talking.

Like the president, he came to office facing monumental problems. Unlike the president, he has used his executive powers aggressively to address the financial crisis he inherited. He has announced $2.2 billion in painful spending cuts to close a mid-year deficit. He has proposed cutting unemployment benefits to limit a tax increase on businesses. He has warned the state's school districts, municipalities and social service providers to plan for 15 percent budget cuts. He has also acted to give Mayors and county executives a tool to control their budgets by calling for a change in New Jersey's public-union arbitration laws. This change would level the playing field for local governments in negotiations with powerful labor unions.

Whether Governor Christie will ultimately succeed remains to be seen. But for the moment, whether you agree with him or not, he has kept his word and maintained his credibility. The problems facing New Jersey are real, and the bill has come due for years of fiscal mismanagement. If Governor Christie continues to do what he says, he will find the people of New Jersey strong enough, and smart enough to understand the problems, and to accept the difficult and necessary choices ahead.

Credibility is, at bottom, a real leader's most effective tool. With neither credibility nor real leaders, Washington is unlikely to meaningfully address either its dysfunction — or anything else — anytime soon.

Eric Aronson is an attorney, and a former Democratic candidate for the New Jersey Assembly.

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