Can Christie champion entitlement reform after expanding Medicaid?

Entitlements have long been considered the third rail of American politics. By grabbing that rail with reckless abandon, Christie reinforces his image as a tough-talking truth-teller who isn’t afraid to revamp big programs that are going broke and adding to the country’s long-term debt.

What Christie is in effect saying is, “I’ll take on the unfunded liabilities of Social Security and Medicare just like I took on the liabilities of New Jersey’s public pensions system.”

Except Christie hasn’t always stood athwart entitlement spending yelling stop. The New Jersey governor accepted Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion. As of April, the decision added 400,000 people to the program’s rolls.

While Christie has been forthright about Medicaid’s impact on state and federal budgets, he dubbed adding more New Jersey residents to the program “the smart thing to do for our fiscal and public health.” He has also been quoted as saying, “Expanding Medicaid was the right thing for New Jersey.”

That’s one way of looking at it. Another is that Medicaid expansion adds millions of people to a program already experiencing financial problems and that provides questionable health care outcomes at cost of $847 billion over ten years — all while consolidating Obamacare in the process.

There’s a limit to how much a candidate’s past record predicts future accomplishments. As governor of California, Ronald Reagan was tougher on deficits than taxes. As president, the opposite was the case. John Kasich was a budget-cutting congressman who wanted to restrain the growth of Medicare. As governor he’s now one of those biggest boosters of Medicaid expansion.

But since you can’t predict the future, past records are all we have to go on. Right now, there’s a disconnect between how Christie dealt with Medicaid when the political pressure was on and how he says he will stand up to such pressure on entitlements as president.