Someone has to stay on the line and say, no, we can do this by cutting spending and reducing the size of government. That's what I was committed to doing.

You can't lay back and wait for somebody else to do it. And I think if the president's made a mistake here, it's this laid-back kind of approach where he's waiting for someone else to solve the problem.

If I had the choice now, I'd make New Jersey a state where you can have a shall issue on conceal and carry. Now our legislature won't do that, but I have done recently is to make sure that we're making it easier for folks to be able to get a permit in New Jersey because they deserve the right to do that as law-abiding citizens.

The President's biggest problem right now is he's gotta tell the truth. And we've seen this in New Jersey. I've told lots of hard truths in New Jersey that people didn't necessarily agree with, but they give you credit for looking them in the eye and telling them the truth.

I can guarantee you this, that more pension and benefit reforms which I will consider arbitration reform to be one of them, are things that when they come to my desk, they will be signed.

Now, in New Jersey, we have more government workers per square mile than any state in America. But since I've been governor we now have fewer people on the state payroll at any time since Christie Whitman left office in January 2001. That's the right direction, Mr. President, not the wrong direction.

We're telling small-business owners that not only are we going to raise their costs by a buck and a quarter, but we're also going to raise it with these cost-of-living adjustments. Here's what's going to happen: They're going to have to lay people off.