New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was interviewed by Laura Ingraham at CPAC today and tried to give a right-wing populist message of sorts to the red-meat crowd by mentioning the working class, but offered up no solutions and just had insults for Hillary Clinton and the increase in the minimum wage. Somewhere along the line, Christie has framed the minimum wage fight as the Democrats' only solution for the stagnant wages that have so heavily favored the wealthy. But what was more interesting was the fact that he admitted that the Republican party IS the party of the rich, and always defends them at the detriment of the working class and the poor.
Christie: Our vision for the United States is one, to make sure that. you know as republicans, the way they'll try to tag is us Laura is to say we're the party of the rich. And I'll tell you something, I don't mind rich people at all, but we don't need to be standing up as a party defending them all the time. What we need to do is start fighting for the people who are trying to lift themselves up, who haven't had a wage increase adjusted for inflation in fifteen years.
Now, Mrs. Clinton's answer to that is to say, raise the minimum wage. I will tell you this. No parents are sitting around the kitchen table saying, if our child can get a higher minimum wage job, my gosh, every one of our aspirations for them will be realized.
His economic plan for the working class is his hope that one day families will be able to tell their children that they can aspire to be anything they want, but he had nothing to tell the CPAC audience or the middle class that could theoretically lead them to that goal.
