New Jersey now has a much clearer portrait of Gov. Phil Murphy after he's been dealt his second humiliating setback on a state budget.

Murphy is a governor who can't seem to fully commit to his own cause. He is good at shaping slogans yet appears unwilling to expend the energy, time and political capital to carry his priorities to the finish line.

In his moments of cheerleading and boundless optimism, the ever-smiling Murphy declares that he's "all in." But in many cases, he's a noncommittal "half-in" governor.

Take, for example, Murphy's proposal to raise the top tax rate on incomes over $1 million from 8.97 percent to 10.75, an idea he has embraced since he was a candidate in 2017. In his view, that tax increase is the essential building block in his vowed makeover of the state into a "fairer and stronger economy."

After being humbled in his first attempt in last year's budget hazing led by leaders of his own party in the Legislature, the unbowed Murphy revived the plan again.

Corralling support in the Legislature was always going to be an uphill struggle, given the publicly declared opposition from Senate President Stephen Sweeney, D-Gloucester, and Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, D-Middlesex. The two leaders' switch from steadfast champions of the tax hike over the last decade to sudden foes represented the mother of all flip-flops in recent Statehouse history.

But their obstinate refusal to consider the tax hike raised the obvious question for Murphy: Why bother pushing for the tax hike at all, especially after both men rebuffed the plan last year? And if you are going to go for it anyway, why not go all in?

Murphy's only option was to build a case among voters, who are apparently perfectly fine with raising rates on New Jersey's 18,000 millionaires, according to polls. And if Murphy could mobilize public support and pressure rank-and-file lawmakers to embrace it, then Coughlin and Sweeney might relent and post the tax hike for a vote.

So what did Murphy do to build a groundswell? Not much. After declaring "let’s work together to apply the millionaires tax to every millionaire" in his budget address in March, there was little in the way of a sustained public campaign, a campaign that was virtually mandatory to sway the recalcitrant Democratic leadership.

Murphy's failure to convert public support for the tax hike into votes in the Legislature came into sharp relief last week when the Democratic-controlled Legislature approved a $38.7 billion budget that does not depend on a millionaires tax hike and other Murphy plans to raise revenue, such as higher fees on gun purchases, opioid manufacturers and large companies that don't provide health coverage for employees.

And in another slap in the face to Murphy, lawmakers stripped $300 million from a "rainy-day fund," upending the governor's plan to persuade Wall Street that New Jersey is finally getting its fiscal house in order. Murphy decried the move Friday and said it financed legislative "pork."

"There's so much pork that ... we're thinking of opening a chain of diners,'' Murphy quipped.

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NJ tax increases a heavy lift

Even with Sweeney's and Coughlin's opposition, winning legislative support for a tax increase, even a limited one, was going to be a heavy lift. History has made that clear. The 1976 enactment of the state income tax was the culmination of a nearly 15-year crusade and nearly cost Brendan T. Byrne his second term.

Gov. Jim Florio's $2.8 billion tax hikes in 1990 led to a bitter taxpayer revolt that has made Democrats gun-shy about raising broad-based taxes ever since. Democratic Party resistance to raising the sales tax by 1 cent in 2006 led to a six-day government shutdown.

Murphy did mention the millionaires tax during telephone town halls, radio shows and some public appearances. But the ex-Goldman Sachs executive and U.S. diplomat, who had the skills to cajole and charm donors into writing big checks for Barack Obama, ran a low-wattage crusade.

His biggest sales tool was television ads launched by New Direction New Jersey, the secretive "dark money" group run by his close allies. The ads featured the upbeat Murphy making his pitch for raising taxes on "people like me to reduce the burden for everyone else."

"Join us,'' he said.

But the New Direction campaign proved to be a debacle. Instead of rallying support, it only served to annoy Coughlin, who worried that the ads could "divide" his caucus, and force Sweeney to further dig in his heels, especially when it was revealed last month that New Direction was staked to a $2.5 million donation from the New Jersey Education Association, Sweeney's mortal political enemy.

Murphy and his allies seemed divided on how to ratchet up the pressure. At one point, the group launched an online petition, implying that lawmakers who opposed the tax are toadies of Donald Trump and former Republican Gov. Chris Christie. The maneuver didn't appear to gain much traction.

Instead, Team Murphy never pulled the trigger on their most effective, hard-hitting argument: calling out the legislators as hypocrites for opposing a tax hike that many of them voted for five times during Christie's tenure.

Instead, Murphy fended off charges of hypocrisy after vetoing legislation that would have regulated "dark money" groups like New Direction and then brazenly hitting the airwaves with the help of their secret donors.

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Murphy's veto so angered legislators that they mobilized to override his veto last week. Rather than face the humiliation of an override — the first in 22 years — Murphy retreated and signed the original version of the bill. But the incident proved to foreshadow Thursday's vote on the budget, which didn't include the millionaires tax and some of Murphy's other priorities.

Murphy also tried to woo lawmakers by offering property tax relief, but that, too, proved to be a half-in commitment. The promised $125 tax credit was dismissed as a face-saving token, too little, too late to make any difference. And it never was given much of a push.

One of the most cogent, convincing arguments Murphy's aides made for the tax hike was packed into a four-page handout shared with reporters last week in Trenton. It debunked the claim that raising taxes would prompt scores of wealthy residents to leave the state and said the state's wealthiest are reaping generous windfalls from Trump's tax cuts, despite its harsh $10,000 limit on state and local tax deductions.

And the number of New Jersey millionaires more than doubled despite the 2004 tax hike on incomes of $500,000 or more.

Compelling arguments and great fodder for a debate, but distributing handouts two weeks before the July 1 budget deadline was long past the time for making the case.

In some ways, Murphy's millionaires tax advocacy has helped burnish his brand as a progressive outsider who is willing to stand up against the calcified Trenton political class. And Murphy has lately ratcheted up his posturing as an outsider.

"I was not elected governor to continue business as usual, Trenton insider politics, but rather to bring change to the 9 million people who call this great state home," he said last week. "This is one of those moments that begs the question: Whose side are you on?"

When it comes to marketing, Murphy is all in. But that's a far cry from governing in a difficult political environment. That, too, takes, someone who is all in.