When all else fails, blame Trump. It might be the only political strategy the Democrats have left but it doesn’t work for everything.
New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill, who took office this year, warns that the state faces a serious structural deficit (spending exceeding revenues annually) of roughly $3 billion, despite a projected surplus of $7.2 billion by the end of 2026. The notice comes as she prepares to unveil her first state budget on March 10th.
Shockingly, Sherrill admits that Covid relief funds are drying up and that the stimulus helped to paper over the many budgetary problems within NJ (this is something alternative economists have asserting for years). However, she immediately launched into an attack on the Trump Administration, blaming federal cuts for the state’s incoming fiscal crisis.
New Jersey’s extreme deficit earns them a membership in an exclusive club of states, all of them run by Democrat governors. California, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Maryland all have deficits of $3 billion or more (California and New York are running deficits above $30 billion). It would seem there is a discernible pattern here, and it has nothing to do with Trump.
New Jersey’s total state government debt was roughly $213 billion as of late 2025, ranking among the highest in the nation.
Furthermore, in August 2023 the New Jersey Policy Perspective (NJPP) think tank issued an analysis cited “red flags” in the FY 2024 budget, including a structural deficit estimated at $1.5 billion for that year (spending exceeding revenues annually). They warned of a looming crisis with revenues projected to fall short by $3-4 billion annually in coming years if trends continued, citing declining year-over-year revenues in many states (including NJ) and unsustainable spending growth.
Phil Murphy, a Democrat, was governor on NJ in 2023. Republicans accused him in 2025 of trying to hide the budget crisis and they threatened to report him to the SEC. Sen. Declan O’Scanlon (R-Monmouth) reviewed financial disclosures from the New Jersey Department of the Treasury. What he found was a series of “grossly misleading” data shared with Wall Street credit rating agencies and the public.
In other words, Democrats knew well before Trump returned to office that they were facing a fiscal shortfall and they relied on covid funds and rigged numbers to kick the can down the road. Sherrill is carrying out a pre-planned agenda to dump these Biden era economic dysfunctions at Donald Trump’s feet.
“Washington isn’t coming to save us. Trump is only making things worse,” said Sherrill. “We have to stand up on our own two feet and make some tough choices. But that’s fine. I’ve been doing hard things for most of my life – and that’s what I was elected to do…”
Sherrill pledged not to raise taxes, instead directing departments to identify savings. She warned that failure to act could trigger credit downgrades, school funding cuts and other painful consequences under the state’s balanced budget requirement. However, blue states inevitably revert to higher taxes on the middle class (as we are seeing under Mamdani in NYC), because Democrats rely on government handouts and subsidized programs as a way to buy votes.
It is likely that New Jersey residents and businesses will be slapped with high taxes within the next year.
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