Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey already has a famous traffic jam on the George Washington Bridge tarnishing his reputation as a Republican comer and putting a damper on his ambitions for higher office. His latest budget difficulties, which have caused him to backtrack on a promise to repair the state’s pension system, adds one more stain to his résumé.

With his usual swagger, Mr. Christie announced in February that he had produced a $34.5 billion state budget for the fiscal year starting July 1 that would be balanced and free of new taxes. “This has truly been an era of fiscal restraint,” he boasted at the time.

Then the state’s tax revenues took a major hit, and New Jersey now faces a $2.7 billion budget shortfall for next year and the rest of this one. Yet instead of the usual remedies — cutting costs, borrowing funds or raising taxes — Mr. Christie decided to skimp on scheduled payments to pension funds for state workers. This form of budget repair is more acceptable to his fellow Republicans.

What might look good politically for Mr. Christie, however, has not fared so well with the nation’s credit-rating agencies. Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s have cut the state’s credit rating six times (most recently S.&P., from AA- to A+, a relatively low rating) and have issued warnings that things may get a lot worse. New Jersey already has a troubling financial picture, with higher unemployment and foreclosures rates than the national average. With one of the worst credit ratings in the country, New Jersey could find it a lot harder to borrow money.