Oroho, Wirths & Space Blast Spendthrift Budget Filled with Spending, Tax Increases and Borrowing

Calling it a “costly day for every New Jersey resident,” Senator Steve Oroho and Assemblymen Hal Wirths and Parker Space today decried the Fiscal Year 2021 budget signed today by Governor Murphy.

The $32.7 billion budget, covering the last nine months in Fiscal Year 2021, combined with the three-month stopgap budget approved in the summer, increases total spending for the year to $40 billion.

“This will be the most expensive year ever, and it didn’t have to be that way,” said Oroho (R-24), 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.

“While families, seniors and employers continue to struggle with economic hardships created by the pandemic, this budget is glaringly bereft of fiscal reforms and packed tight with tax increases and borrowing,” said Oroho. “This will cost New Jersey residents dearly.”

Wirths, the Assembly Republican budget officer, blasted a budget full of political “pork” for pet projects, including $15 million to clean up Camden, $10 million in transitional aid for only 10 hand-picked municipalities, $4 million for a golf course in Essex County and $6.2 million to pay the legal bills for illegal immigrants.

“Republicans want government to be run like a business because a business must respond to people’s needs to be successful, and always find ways to do more for people with less,” Wirths said. “With $703 million of increased taxes, $1.7 billion of spending hikes and $4.5 billion of new borrowing, this budget does less for more.

“New Jersey will be the only state in the nation to increase spending and increase debt as people are continuing to file new unemployment claims and small businesses continue to close. The reason California leads the nation in poverty and New Jersey in working-poor residents is the same liberal economic ideology,” Wirths continued.

Space noted the budget once again slashed education aid to towns in Sussex, Warren and Morris counties.

“Our school districts continue suffering financially while the Governor’s budget spreads money around with no consideration for education in suburban and rural areas,” said Space. “On top of the considerable tax increases included in this budget, for residents in our counties will face certain property tax increases today and into the future.

“This is an irresponsible spending plan that makes an already unaffordable state even more unaffordable. New Jersey residents deserved better from the Democrats in Trenton,” Space said.