When Republican Gov. Chris Christie was in office, New Jersey's Democratic legislature had a villain to blame when budget talks went sour. Now the seat is held by a Democrat, Gov. Phil Murphy, and his relationship with the legislature isn't going well as the two sides work to hash out a state budget.
Both sides agree they want to support public schools, pensions and transportation projects. But they disagree on how to fund that spending. Murphy wants to pay for it with a millionaires tax, which leaders in the legislature oppose.
"This budget marks a return to Chris Christie's New Jersey, and silly me, I thought we had moved on," Murphy told reporters on Monday.
But legislators say they don't want to raise taxes on millionaires because they fear a backlash when they run for re-election. In the 1990s, when the Democratic legislature went along with Gov. Jim Florio's tax hike, voters sent them packing.
Democratic Assemblyman Louis Greenwald says he is less afraid of what voters will think of a government shutdown like the one that happened last year.
"I don't believe the public remembers at all that we shut down government for three days while the most visual memory of that is Governor Christie sitting on the beach," Greenwald said.
The deadline for a budget deal is midnight Saturday.
