TRENTON, N.J. – Governor Phil Murphy signed a massive $32.7 billion budget on Tuesday, one which will encompass the final nine months of FY 2021. The grand total – when taking into account the three-month “stopgap budget” from the summer – reveals that spending is up considerably over FY 2020.
“This will be the most expensive year ever, and it didn’t have to be that way,” said state Senator Steven Oroho (R-24) who serves as the Senate Republican Budget Officer. “The budget includes $4.5 billion in borrowing that will burden New Jersey taxpayers for decades into the future. That massive debt increase avoided constitutional scrutiny by state voters, and will be used not for basic services but to create a fake ‘surplus’ for the administration to spend at will.”
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The FY 2021 budget also includes $703 million in tax hikes.
“Disappointment in the majority is an understatement. I am disgusted,” added Assemblyman Hal Wirths (R-24). “We all know that this budget is not an aberration for Democrats, but deep down it is still abhorrent to the regular, nonpolitical, tax-paying resident of New Jersey. No matter what Democrats convince themselves to believe.”
The budget passed both houses along strictly party lines.
