NEWARK: New Jersey Citizen Action (NJCA) Executive Director Dena Mottola Jaborska released the following statement today on Governor Phil Murphy's final budget address:
"We appreciate Governor Murphy for focusing on Cover All Kids by increasing its funding and allocating $165 million in the Budget to it at a time when the federal administration is targeting undocumented immigrants, and threating cuts to Medicaid and other social programs. We are also encouraged that the budget includes full funding for programs that protect immigrants, a full pension payment, full funding for schools and increased funding for women’s health care services.
We also applaud the Governor’s insight and commitment to funding the Attorney General’s federal defense against the undemocratic and harmful actions proposed by the Trump administration and Elon Musk-led DOGE. The AG’s work this far with other attorney generals around the nation has been extremely impactful and is crucial to the defense we need now and will need in the future.
That being said, we have a number of concerns about the budget as we understand it and we will be further reviewing the details when they come out. For example, Governor Murphy has called for $2 billion in cuts to state appropriations, but we do not know what programs and services will be impacted by these cuts.
At a time when looming federal cuts are also threatening our state budget, and we may see slashes to the $27.5 billion in federal expenditures that flow into New Jersey annually, we call for a balanced approach that includes fair taxation of wealthier individuals and corporations to ensure that essential services remain intact.
We need to tax wealthy New Jerseyans and big corporations to invest into our low-to-middle income communities and families. We need to find new ways to generate revenues rather than cutting funds to programs and services that our already vulnerable families depend on.
This is a dangerous time for our state and its people, and much more will be required of our Legislature and Governor to defend against the harmful cuts being enacted by the Trump administration."