As Phil Murphy mocks Trump's style, NJ Democrats school governor on the Art of the Deal As deadline looms, Murphy keeps all options on table --including ones he loathes

Charles Stile | NorthJersey

Show Caption Hide Caption Father of Parkland victim at Phil Murphy event Fred Guttenberg, father of Parkland shooting victim Jaime Guttenberg, speaks in support of Gov Phil Murphy measures on gun control.

After taking questions Wednesday about budget talks with the Legislature, Gov. Phil Murphy couldn't resist taking a swipe at President Donald Trump's vaunted reputation as a sharp-elbowed negotiator.

"I’m so impressed with President Trump’s negotiating skills with North Korea that I’ve decided to give the Legislature everything they want in exchange for being nice to me for the next few weeks,'' Murphy said.

But in reality, many of Murphy's fellow Democrats who rule the roost in the Legislature haven't had many nice things to say about his $34.7 billion budget, the first installment in Murphy's dream of converting New Jersey into a progressive bastion of the Northeast. The governor has the vision and, he believes, the mandate from voters.

But he doesn't have the votes in the Statehouse.

That has forced Murphy to adopt a more nimble, pliable, Art-of-the-Deal style of negotiations. The former U.S. ambassador to Germany is grudgingly keeping all his options open, including ones that he clearly loathes, because he really has no choice in the matter.

Democratic leaders are resisting the Murphy's proposals to raise nearly $1.7 billion in taxes, a number that would fit nicely into Republican campaign attack ads

Instead, they are shopping around alternatives that, at least on paper, purport to balance the budget without Murphy's hikes. Murphy clearly doesn't like many of the suggestions, but he didn't outright oppose them under any circumstances, either.

"I don’t want people to walk away thinking that I’m a coldhearted orb and you can’t do business with me,'' he said after signing several gun-control measures into law Wednesday. "I understand the nature of politics and compromises.''

That's hardly the kind of obstinate, line-in-the-sand rhetoric that foreshadows a budget shutdown, which would happen if an agreement isn't reached and signed into law by midnight June 30. And while he defended the rationale for his tax hikes, Murphy didn't necessarily describe them as off-limits for negotiations.

Asked whether he could sign a budget that didn't include the millionaires' tax (strongly opposed by Senate President Stephen Sweeney, D-Gloucester) or restoring the sales tax from 6.625 percent to 7 percent (strongly opposed by Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, D-Middlesex), Murphy offered up a safe, ambassadorial dodge.

"I would say more generally I want to sign a budget, and I’m committed to doing that,'' Murphy said. "It has to be the right budget. It can't be just any budget. Any budget that sort of kicks the can down the road is not one I'm going to sign on to."

That is another way of saying that anything and everything is on the table for negotiation. It could also be read as an admission that his proposed tax hikes may not make it. Or maybe he's acknowledging — as others have suggested — that he may to have to scale them back, perhaps by limiting hikes on the super-wealthy, perhaps with incomes over $5 million.

Or maybe he will have capitulate to some version of Sweeney's proposal to raise the rate on corporations from 9 percent to 12 percent. Sweeney floated the idea on the belief that company coffers are brimming with extra cash from Trump's tax cuts. One suggestion is to let the hike expire after two years.

Murphy on taxes

Murphy is less than thrilled with the idea. Sweeney fears that imposing a 10.75 percent rate on millionaires would spur hordes of them to move to low-tax states, like Florida. Murphy fears that a corporate tax hike would spur companies to leave the state — and take their workers with them.

"So if they are here and they decide to leave, that’s trips to restaurants, that’s middle-class houses, that’s jobs that are lost. That's a concern,'' he said.

Also kicking around the Legislature is a plan to let tax deadbeats pay back taxes without threat of penalty. Under one estimate, "amnesty" could raise $150 million. But that's just the kind of "one-shot" burst of revenue that Wall Street analysts disdain and Murphy has vowed to stop.

"For a generation, Trenton has shortchanged permanent priorities by resorting to gimmicks and short-term fixes,'' he said. "A stronger, fairer way starts with changing the way Trenton does business,'' he said, echoing former Gov. Jim McGreevey's slogan from 18 years ago.

Every new governor vows to change the way Trenton does business, and Murphy is convinced that voters gave him clear marching orders to do that last November with a 13-point victory.

But voters had little awareness of Murphy's agenda — they were just relieved that he represented a departure from his unpopular predecessor, Republican Chris Christie. Meanwhile, the entrenched Democrats in the Legislature operate on their own mandates. They are pragmatic survivors worried about election cycles and home-district constituents, not dreams of turning New Jersey into a California East.

Still, Murphy suggested Wednesday that there has been some agreement on some possible "investments" that he's proposed, but he didn't say which ones. One Murphy idea that has received some support is a plan to expand pre-kindergarten programs in public schools.

And for all of Sweeney's tough talk about the millionaires' tax, his characterizing of the tax as a "measure of last resort'' is carefully parsed to keep the door open. And both Murphy and Sweeney have signaled in recent days that they are close to a deal on the funding of public schools, a top Sweeney priority.

"I’m not interested in plans that only look good for next year or the next election. That’s not why I was elected,'' the governor said. "We need solutions that work instead for a generation."

But that kind of campaign-style rhetoric has a way of melting away in the heated budget bargaining of June in Trenton. And Murphy is feeling the heat for the first time.