the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Trenton NJ, The New Jersey Legislature is moving aggressively on Democrats’ $38.7 billion state budget proposal .The Democratic controlled state Legislature have insisted they won’t support a Murphy’s millionaires tax, and their proposed $38.7 billion budget preserves just one of the Democratic governor’s proposed tax increases raising the tax paid by HMOs , The legislator took money out of the state’s rainy day fund, cutting some spending and tweaking revenue estimates for the coming fiscal year to balance the budget.
Lawmakers rejected Gov. Phil Murphy’s calls for tax hikes on millionaires ,increased fees on gun owners, corporations, opioid manufacturers and bear hunters in New Jersey,
While Republican lawmakers in the Senate Budget and Appropriations committee abstained from voting on the budget at the Statehouse in Trenton, they did, praise Democrats for stripping most tax increases out of Murphy’s budget proposal and adding in $100 million in new money for NJ Transit and extraordinary special education.
The chairman of the Senate committee, state Sen. Paul Sarlo, D-Bergen, touted that the budget included no new, broad-based taxes and a $1.4 billion year-end surplus ,claiming “the largest surplus we’ve had in years.”