By Phil Murphy

Over the past year, I’ve been unapologetic about advocating for New Jersey – for our people, our workforce, our location, and our potential. All over our state, across the country, and around the world, I have proudly told New Jersey’s story.

As governor, my job is to lay the framework upon which New Jersey’s future is written. That story must be one in which the middle class expands and thrives, businesses grow, and investments are made.

On Tuesday, I will present a new budget that will help us write this story by prioritizing our single greatest asset: our people. This budget will be the blueprint for making our middle class more secure, and for building the ramp that will carry more families into its ranks. We will continue the way forward with a multi-faceted approach that begins with achieving real, significant, and lasting savings and efficiencies that will allow us to do more to build our future. Our budget will restore responsible fiscal stewardship, invest in our people and communities, and ensure tax fairness for middle-class families taking it on the chin from rising inequality and President Trump’s harmful federal tax changes.

For the eight years prior to our administration, New Jersey’s middle class was nearly written out of our story. Our middle-class families – and those who worked hard in hopes of joining the middle class – bore the brunt of years of disinvestment, poor fiscal management, and underwhelming economic growth. Instead of expanding, our middle class was hollowed out.

Over the past year, through historic investments in education and workforce development, in infrastructure – including NJ TRANSIT – and with a renewed focus on righting our fiscal housethrough responsible planning, we have begun the hard work of turning New Jersey around. The promise of this work is evident in the fact that in 2018 the statewide average property tax grew by less than 1 percent, the smallest rate on record.

Last year, we committed to reclaiming New Jersey’s status as the State of Innovation, and our budget made historic investments in infrastructure, education, and all the assets that we need to make that promise a reality. Our next budget will continue to make good on that promise by building on these investments – and, in particular, in our efforts to restore NJ TRANSIT -- that make New Jersey work.

Despite the strengths of our workforce, our second-to-none location, and a deep bench of assets, New Jersey is in the unenviable position of paying more to borrow than nearly every other state in the nation. After 11 straight credit downgrades from the major ratings agencies under the previous administration, my administration put a strategic focus on improving our fiscal management to dig our way out of this hole. The budget I will propose will significantly continue that progress through stable revenues and honest accounting.

Prosperity requires prudence, responsibility, and a vision for the future. We can, and will, build the future that New Jerseyans deserve by continuing to invest in our state’s strengths. We will continue to fix what’s broken so we can better provide what our residents and businesses need to grow and thrive.

New Jersey’s future remains bright. In fact, it has never dimmed – only our spirits had. But, over the past year, we began to renew New Jersey’s spirit and restoke our competitive fires. On Tuesday, we’ll continue this trajectory to grow and secure our middle class, and give hope to more families that they can join the middle class.

Together, we’re building a stronger and fairer New Jersey. Let’s keep writing this new chapter in New Jersey’s story.

Phil Murphy is the governor of New Jersey.

Bookmark NJ.com/Opinion. Follow us on Twitter @NJ_Opinion and on Facebook at NJ.com Opinion. Get the latest news updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.com’s newsletters.

