New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie remained staunchly opposed to raising taxes in his annual budget address Tuesday.
Christie boasted that his $34.8 billion budget proposal will be the seventh straight with no new taxes. The Republican governor, who recently suspended his presidential campaign, emphasized that discretionary spending is $2 billion less than 2008 with 95% of the spending plan geared toward pensions, public worker health benefits and debt service.
The overall spending plan is around $1 billion higher than the current budget, but Christie said only 1% is comprised of "one-shot revenues" compared to 13% before he took office in January 2010.
"The days of taxing and spending and wasting taxpayer money have gone to the dustbin of history, where they belong," he said. "We are making real progress rolling back taxes that should never have been enacted in the first place."
Christie's steadfast opposition to taxes includes efforts by the Legislature's Democratic majorities to raise the gas tax for transportation improvements. The Transportation Trust Fund, which funds infrastructure improvements, is slated to expire on July 1 after five years. Christie did not include a TTF funding plan in his budget plan and lambasted any proposal that involves a gas tax hike.
"Remedies for any fix of the TTF cannot be made in a vacuum and I will not permit them to be made in a vacuum," said Christie. "My administration continues to examine ways to control cash flow and make the most of every taxpayer dollar that the TTF spends."
Christie's budget proposal includes earmarking a record $1.9 billion to the state's pension funds, a $550 million increase from last year. He said to accomplish this, the budget calls for identifying $250 million in savings from proposed cost reduction reforms for public employee and retiree health benefits. A bipartisan commission formed by Christie noted in a Feb. 11 report that the state could achieve more than $2 billion in annual savings by aligning public workers more closely to private-sector employer standards.
"Fix our pension and health benefit system in a way that will not divide and burden our taxpayers, but will bring closer together the real world and the excesses of the government world," said Christie. "Left unchecked, this will kill our ability to cover the cost of essential services that we expect of government."
New Jersey has the second lowest credit rating of the 50 U.S. states and has experienced nine downgrades since Christie arrived in Trenton six years ago due largely to structurally unbalanced budgets and rising unfunded pension liabilities. The state is rated A2 by Moody's Investors Service and A by Fitch Ratings and Standard & Poor's.
