New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie delivers his budget address for fiscal year 2016 to the Legislature on Feb. 24, 2015, in Trenton, N.J. (credit: Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images)New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie delivers his budget address for fiscal year 2016 to the Legislature on Feb. 24, 2015, in Trenton, N.J. (credit: Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images)
Democratic legislative leaders Thursday pushed through a $35 billion budget, which includes a four-year millionaires tax and a one-year corporate income tax increase, WCBS 880’s Levon Putney reported.
The spending blueprint also makes a $3.1 billion payment to the public pension.
Christie said he will keep his word and use a line-item veto as he’s done in past budgets to take out the tax increases. He’s also expected to reduce the pension payment to to $1.3 billion.
“What we’re watching in Trenton today is a bit of an elaborate dance, and it’s very choroegraphed,” Ben Dworkin, director of Rider University’s Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics, told Putney.
Dworkin said Christie will polish off his presidential platform by showing he fights off Democrats and tax increases.
As for state Democrats, they want to show the unions that they tried to make a full pension payment but that Christie did not allow it.
The package of bills passed Thursday also aims to help Atlantic City and its struggling casinos.
The most important legislation would let its eight casinos make payments in lieu of taxes for 15 years, allowing the gambling halls to know exactly how much they owe instead of facing huge potential increases each year.
