Christie Video: We Got the Money AND The Red Tape

Transcript From July 16, 2013 News Conference:

Governor Christie: Sandy affected, either substantially damaged or destroyed 365,000 homes in New Jersey, 365,000. Now we’re not going to get everybody back in their homes in the first eight months. We haven’t. A number of people have gotten back in but not nearly everybody.

This is going to take some time everybody, and because—the good thing about having federal money is we have federal money.
The bad thing is we get federal red tape that goes along with it, you know, like the old saying, I’m from Washington and I’m here to help. You know, it doesn’t always work smoothly. 

That’s why Bob and his team have case managers available to help you work through all that and we got to work through it together, but we have the funds available to be able to give people a new start, and we want to give them that new start. I know it’s not easy, and I know it’s been eight long months so far, and I ask you for your patience knowing that asking you for that, you know, gets you a little pain right in your gut. 

But I know also that the only way we’re going to be able to fix this big problem is to work together to do it, and I hope you understand that I’m going to continue to work as hard as I can to make it happen for everybody here in South River who wants to move on with their lives someplace else, to be able to sell their home and to get the money they need to be able to go to another home where they’ll feel comfortable and be able to live out their lives with their families