Christie earns $175,000 per year, receives a $75,000 stipend for expenses, and may use two state-owned residences: a mansion in Princeton and a summer beachfront home in Island Beach State Park. Christie’s calls for “shared sacrifice” to alleviate New Jersey’s budget problems have been a marquee theme of his governorship, but he’s said that any reduction to his own salary would be “of little or no consequence.”

Republican Gov. Rick Snyder of Michigan, who is independently wealthy, has chosen to forgo his salary, the third-highest in the nation for governors. Snyder has taken action that many see as an assault on collective bargaining rights in Michigan.

Coming in fifth is Virginia Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell, who supported Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s drive to curb collective bargaining rights for public employees, enraging Virginia’s unions. Virginia’s public workers long ago lost such rights.

Gov. Mark Sanford left the Governor’s Mansion without a security escort, 38 times in 2008. In the first six months of this year, he left the mansion without security, 39 times.

Those trips are about one-third of the 195 trips Sanford made from the mansion, with or without security, over that 18-month period.

At this point the only thing keeping Sanford in his job is the politicking of local Republicans, who are not ready to push power into the hands of ambitious Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer.