well with just minutes to spare legislative budget committees late last night approved the largest spending plan in State history Democrats pushed through the 54.3 billion dollar budget along party lines narrowly meeting a deadline to avoid a government shutdown the final plan includes most of Governor Murphy's original proposal a 7 billion dollar payment to the public worker pension system full funding for the anchor property tax relief program expanding the child tax credit free state parks and money for the new stay NJ senior tax relief program but it also adds about a billion dollars in new spending amounting to a roughly 60 percent increase in state spending since Governor Murphy took office in 2018. all of that added to Republicans protests and frustrations last night accusing Democrats of a lack of transparency and public input for throwing a bill together they say behind closed doors saying they never got to look at the budget document before the vote as your side of the aisle seen a full budget document at this point in time because my caucus hasn't seen a full budget document we've only seen score sheets which we've been told Maybe not 100 accurate at this point in time in fact I mean we've seen a full budget document and accuracy is in the eye of the home whether it's that if we're voting on what we have in front of us accuracy is perhaps people are suggesting it's inaccurate because it's not the understanding of what we suggested but we're voting on what we have before us if we if we find any inaccuracy we'd have to change it but we're going to vote on it the way it is budget and finance writer John reitmeyer was at the state house until The Bitter End and says the drama is commonplace in the process but it's a little bit embarrassing for leadership especially on the eve of uh of a full legislative election year all 120 seats including the seats of the assembly speaker and the Senate President are on the ballot this fall and certainly it's not a good look to be going into a full legislative election with this sort of uh confusion through again what's really the most important bill that gets enacted in Trenton [Music] [Music]