Christie proposes $34.8B budget for N.J.

TRENTON - The presidential campaign trail now behind him, Gov. Christie challenged New Jersey Democrats to work with him during the remainder of his term while outlining his budget plan for the coming year Tuesday at the Statehouse.

"Let me remind you - the election of our next governor is 630 days away," Christie told lawmakers in the Assembly chamber, where he proposed a $34.8 billion budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1. "Are we going to waste those days on partisanship and politics, or will you work with me . . . to help bring relief to our overburdened taxpayers?"

Making his first public appearance since dropping out of the presidential race last week, Christie acknowledged that his sixth-place finish in the New Hampshire GOP primary was "not the result I hoped for. Maybe some of you, too," he quipped.

But he pledged his commitment to New Jersey for the remainder of his final term.

"I am standing here to tell you, I am willing to continue to fix the remaining problems," Christie said, standing in front of Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D., Gloucester) and Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto (D., Hudson). "We can sit and reason together for the next 630 days, or we can fight for the next 630 days and leave our citizens devoid of hope. Not my preference."

Christie's proposal is up $1 billion from the budget he signed in June. It doesn't include new tax increases or cuts, according to the state's acting treasurer.

Unlike recent budget cycles, Christie proposed a contribution to the state pension system that aligned with Democrats' expectations.

The budget address was Christie's seventh, but it marked a new phase of his governorship: one without the 2016 presidential race - and the pressure of appealing to a Republican primary electorate - looming overhead.

The experience "has made me a better governor, a better American, and a better person," Christie said, after thanking New Jerseyans for "allowing me the great privilege" of running for president.

He faces different pressures at home. A Rutgers-Eagleton poll released Tuesday found Christie with 29 percent favorability among New Jersey registered voters, his lowest rating to date. The governor's job approval rating is 33 percent, the poll found.

"He's got no political capital, in Trenton or anywhere in the state," said Patrick Murray, a political analyst at Monmouth University.

Democrats, including Sweeney, are racing to succeed Christie, and collaboration with the governor could be seen as apostasy by the party's base. For his part, Sweeney said he thought Christie will run for president again in the future, meaning "it's going to be just as hard" to work with him.

Despite the governor's focus on bipartisanship, bickering persisted. Democrats pushed back on Christie's suggestion that they had placed election-year politics ahead of a solution on the state's near-depleted transportation trust fund for road, bridge, and rail maintenance and projects.

Christie also said that to imply that the fund - which runs out June 30 - was going broke was a "politically driven mischaracterization."

"I was probably hotter than a baked potato back there, to be honest with you," Prieto told reporters, taking issue with Christie's statements.

Christie didn't temper his tone on a variety of subjects. He dismissed criticisms of his stewardship of New Jersey's economy by "left-wing groups," panned a regional greenhouse gas initiative that Democrats have pushed for the state to rejoin as "discredited," and described public workers as "the privileged few" while accusing their unions of demanding overly generous benefits.

"This chamber should not divide our state between government workers with huge benefits and everyday New Jersey taxpayers," Christie said, criticizing an amendment Democrats have advanced that would make it a constitutional requirement for the state to pay into its long-underfunded pension system.

Former Gov. Jim McGreevey, who attended the budget address, said Christie had offered Democrats an "olive branch."

"The tone was different than the State of the State, where the governor clearly set forth defining differences," said McGreevey, a Democrat. Christie's message Tuesday, McGreevey said, was that while "there may be differences of opinion, there ought to be a shared desire to tackle certain systemic challenges."

Christie continued to push for the recommendations proposed by the pension and benefit commission he appointed - such as scaling back health benefits for workers to pay down the state's pension debt - saying the only alternative would be higher taxes and reduced funding for other budget priorities.

Christie "returned to his tired, knee-jerk themes with predictable attacks on public employees and attempts to divide working New Jerseyans," said Wendell Steinhauer, president of the state's largest teachers' union, the New Jersey Education Association.

"He spent a year out of the state, running for office, but he didn't come back with any new ideas for the problems he left behind," Steinhauer said.

The projected increase in spending for fiscal 2017 is driven almost entirely by debt service and the growing costs of pensions and health benefits for public employees, Christie said.

He proposed $1.9 billion for the pension system for the next fiscal year, which Democrats welcomed.

"Guess what we've been saying now for the last couple months? You can make the pension payments without raising taxes," Sweeney told reporters.

New Jersey has $40 billion less than it needs to be able to pay the present value of pension benefits to current retirees and the benefits earned to date by current employees, according to the Treasury Department.

Moody's Investors Service said in a report last month that enacting Christie's proposed changes to the pension and health benefits systems would improve the state's credit profile by reducing long-term liabilities and relieving pressure on the budget.

Three plans - for teachers, most state employees, and judges - are projected to be unable to cover their payments by 2027 or earlier, according to a 2015 report by the Christie-appointed commission.

Christie's budget assumes $250 million in health-care savings for public employees. Christie's commission has said the state could save $2 billion annually through such changes as employees obtaining health insurance through private exchanges rather than state plans.

The governor's budget includes less money for hospitals, because fewer uninsured people are seeking care that would be covered by the state.

Acting Treasurer Ford Scudder told reporters that 434,000 New Jerseyans were newly insured through the expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, which took effect in January 2014. An additional 285,000 residents have gained insurance through Obamacare's federal exchange, he said.

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