Phil Murphy promises on legal weed, taxes, pensions and more could turn friends to foes

Gov. Phil Murphy likes to make friends, not enemies.

He pats on a lot of backs, calls a lot of people "brother,'' and reflexively replies to people's remarks with "amen, to that." He loves to give shout-outs. He won't curse in public, going so far to say "heck,'' last week -- a mild, choir-boy sequel to Chris Christie's "get the hell off the beach" demand to lingering beach goers as a hurricane moved up the coast in August 2011.

But on Tuesday friendly Phil will undergo a rite-of-passage for rookie governors, the roll out of his first budget. Officially, it's a blueprint for his spending plan for the fiscal year 2019, but unofficially it's a list of winners and loser in new Murphy era of Trenton. By the end of the day, some of his friends, eager for long-awaited spoils, will be not so friendly, and some will leave the Statehouse muttering curse words under their breath.

The honeymoon officially will be over. Murphy has lived a remarkable career trajectory with a Midas touch -- a Harvard graduate, 23 years at Goldman Sachs, U.S. ambassador to Germany, and now 56th governor of New Jersey -- and now he will have to put some substance behind the lofty, progressive soundbites of the campaign trail.

For some supporters, those soundbites had the ring of promises. And promises often beget expectations, especially from those who carried him to his 13-point victory in November. And that's where the problem may lie for Murphy.

"What Murphy campaigned on was priorities,'' said Ben Dworkin, director, of the Rowan University Institute for Public Policy and Citizenship. "His biggest supporters heard promises."

Indeed, Murphy spun a new-century vision for the state that seemed rudderless after the fall of Christie. Public education was finally going to be fully funded. Free tuition to community colleges. The crumbling and expensive New Jersey Transit system would be overhauled. A pension portfolio drowning in red ink would suddenly be stocked with cash. And a "fair, stronger" economy will burst from the bosom of the "hollowed out" middle class. Rejuvenation, rebirth.

Taxing millionaires, closing corporate loopholes and even raising taxes on the recreational use of marijuana would raise enough money to get things started. Buoyed by Murphy's support, advocates for legal marijuana, for example, have flooded the Statehouse for weeks, only to confront a wary, resistant Legislature.

Now, they are hoping Murphy will give the crusade new momentum by including a line-item in the budget for marijuana revenue, even if the legislation has yet to be enacted.

"I think it is important that there be a placeholder in the budget,'' said Scott Rudder, president of the New Jersey Cannabusiness Association, which represents a range of marijuana-related businesses.

Yet, some political analysts noted that Murphy was careful near the close of the campaign to subtly begin to deflate expectations. And on Monday Murphy accelerated that strategy during a half-hour appearance on New Jersey 101.5- FM.

Murphy promised one caller that he'll be making a "major statement in funding New Jersey Transit" in Tuesday's budget address, but was careful to note that turning around the crumbling, patronage-saddled agency can't happen "overnight."

He took a similar tack with another woman who asked Murphy about his plans to help state workers, including her boyfriend, a corrections officer whose net pay declined because of raising health care costs during the Christie era.

"We are coming out of a period when state workers left holding the bag,'' he said sympathetically, but added, "We can't get that fixed overnight."

Property tax fight

One reason why Murphy is adding an asterisk to his ambitions is the push-back and intra-party friction that defined this transition to power. Although this should have been triumphal moment for Democrats, a full "trifecta" sweep of Legislature and governor's office, he's clashed with Senate President Stephen Sweeney, D-Gloucester, and the new Assembly speaker, Craig Coughlin of Middlesex County, has made it clear that he has no intentions of marching in lockstep with the new governor.

Sweeney has called a millionaire's tax a "measure of last resort,'' and has come up with a plan that, instead, taxes the corporations that run them. Murphy has refused to abandon the millionaire's tax, but in a sign that he may be softening his position, he no longer calls it a millionaire's tax, but now speaks generally of a desire of targeting the wealthiest for "tax equity." He's not seeking to wage "tax warfare,'' he said Monday.

Murphy also signaled Monday some other important shifts. During the campaign, he barely mentioned a plan to lower property taxes, a top priority issue for New Jersey voters and an issue that has bedeviled governors for decades. But he told listeners that there will be some "very specific steps on property tax relief" in his budget.

"It is high on our agenda,'' he said.

He also promised to announce plans for a "shared services czar,'' who will study and recommend potential savings for local governments. It's worth noting that a defiant Sweeney has declared property tax relief and shared services as two key priorities in recent weeks.

Murphy may be covering his flank on those two issues or signalling that he's capitulating to Sweeney and the new realities of Trenton. There is little chance of getting much done without the cooperation of the Senate president.

"It's not out of the question for the legislature to develop its own budget to send back to the governor than what he sent to us,'' Assemblyman John Burzichelli, D-Gloucester, a Sweeney ally told NJTV's Michael Aron this weekend. Burzichelli's statement is an accurate account of the budget-making process. But it also augurs the kind of intra-party discontent that led to a government shutdown in former Gov. Jon S. Corzine's first year in office.

Monmouth University pollster Patrick Murray says that Murphy's new emphasis on property taxes shows that he's at least willing to speak the "vernacular" of Trenton rather than recycle the talk of turning New Jersey into a "progressive laboratory.''

"It's an Indication that now that he's in office, understands the number one issue that drives (New Jersey) politics,'' Murray said.

In other words, Murphy has taken a new step on the Trenton learning curve. And that step may be a retreat -- for now -- from his big picture goals of turning New Jersey into the California of the east coast.

"He's made a lot of chits to people and at some point those chits are going to to have to come due,'' Murray said. "He's going to have to disappoint people."

And disappointing people is not something Murphy is eager to do. It's not what he campaigned to do.