Christie To Veto NJ Dems' Tax Hikes

May 20 (Bloomberg) -- Lawmakers in New Jersey’s Democrat- controlled Assembly voted to raise income taxes on residents earning at least $1 million a year, as Republican Governor Chris Christie said he’d veto the bill...

The chamber passed the measure 46-32 in a vote that broke down along party lines. Of 33 Republicans, 32 voted no. The Senate approved the bill 23-17 along party lines, setting up a showdown with Christie, 47, as the deadline approaches to have a balanced budget in place when the fiscal year ends on June 30...

“This is a defining moment -- it seems to me to be all about taxes, taxes and taxes,” Assembly Minority Leader Alex DeCroce, a Republican from Parsippany, said during more than an hour of floor debate before the vote. Referring to Democrats, he said, “that’s all you guys do.”

About 16,000 New Jersey tax filers have incomes of more than $1 million, legislators said during the Assembly debate. That’s less than 1 percent of the state’s 3.9 million total.

“I don’t have an issue with millionaires, I just have an issue with people not sharing in the sacrifice,” said Senate President Stephen Sweeney, a Democrat from West Deptford. “Those 16,000 people can help 600,000.”

Christie yesterday said he planned to restore the $55.5 million in cuts he proposed to the Pharmaceuticals for the Aged and Disabled program without raising taxes.