Asbury Park Press

Since long before Phil Murphy was elected governor, he has never given even a hint that he might, if circumstances demanded, moderate his progressive agenda or the fiscal recklessness that goes along with it.

On Tuesday, when he delivers his second budget address, he will have yet another opportunity to choose a different path, one that can help get the state back on the road to fiscal stability that lawmakers in both parties have been imploring him to take. But if the following snippet from his press office previewing Tuesday's speech is any indication, don't expect the tiger to change its stripes. God help taxpayers if Murphy doesn't.

To wit: “New Jersey deserves a budget built upon the values that can deliver a more secure and growing middle class — sustainable savings, responsible fiscal management, smart and targeted investment, and fairness,” Murphy said. “Over the past year, we have done much to restore New Jersey’s competitive fires and put our state on a new trajectory for a stronger future. On Tuesday, we’ll continue that mission with a budget that invests in New Jersey’s middle class and those working hard in hopes of joining its ranks.”

Sound familiar? It could have been clipped, then pasted, from any of his campaign stump speeches, his inauguration speech, his first budget address, and his January State of the State speech. Nothing in it suggests a willingness to tighten the state's budget belt or pull back on his continued investments in social programs, which Murphy insists, contrary to most of the available evidence, is necessary to improve life for the middle class.

The red flags about Murphy's approach that have been waved by the business community, taxpayers and legislator from both sides of the political aisle have all been slapped aside. On Friday, another screaming scarlet red flag was raised in a story by TODAY USA Network — New Jersey Staff Writer Dustin Racioppi. He reported that New Jersey could come up $5 billion short in tax revenue in the current fiscal year. That amounts to about 15 percent of Murphy's $33.5 million budget.

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Tax collections through January were up 2.8 percent from the previous year, according to the Office of Legislative Services. Trouble is, Murphy had projected revenues would rise 7.2 percent to help justify the 8 percent increase in his budget.

Most troubling of all is Murphy's repeated failure to pay heed to a bipartisan task force that not only warned of deep fiscal troubles ahead, but came up with a series of recommendations on ways New Jersey could avoid them. The proposals included making changes to public employee pension and health care benefits, mandatory consolidation of K-6 and K-8 school districts into larger K-12 districts, limits on unused sick days, requiring the merger of municipal courts with small caseloads into regional courts, and allowing counties to "provide the full range of local police services (in full or in part) to help municipalities lower their costs.

To date, none of the recommendations has been acted upon. And Murphy has given no indication he has taken seriously the pledges by the top two legislative leaders in his own Democratic Party, Senate President Steve Sweeney and Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, to oppose any new tax increases.

Recent Monmouth University polls have shown a substantial weakening of Murphy's approval ratings and a sharp decline in New Jerseyans' perception of the quality of life here. We hope Murphy will take those poll numbers into account when spelling out his budget and policy priorities.

It would be a mistake for Murphy to think his strong union support and the Democratic Party's huge voter registration advantage are enough to allow him to skate to re-election. Worse, refusing to act in the face of so many warning signs would be an abject betrayal of New Jersey's struggling taxpayers.