New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is expected to sign the new state spending plan in the next day or two after the Legislature gave its final approval at the beginning of the week.

Governor Chris Christie speaks in Mount Laurel. (Governor's Office/Tim Larsen)
Governor Chris Christie speaks in Mount Laurel. (Governor's Office/Tim Larsen)
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"I feel confident that it's a good budget, a good budget for the people of the state, but it means you're not going to get everything you want if you want to negotiate a budget, and all of us decided we wanted to negotiate a budget this year," says the Governor.

Christie says the past two years he's been force to line item the budget, but after an agreement was reached this time around he's putting the veto pen away.

"I'm not going to go back and double cross these guys and go back and use the line item veto pen. No I won't do that - that's not the way you get bi-partisan agreement on things."

He points out there was a significant amount of Democratic support for the budget that was ultimately adopted.

"So I feel very gratified that I've been able to bring people together in that way."

The Governor adds earlier this spring, Senate President Steve Sweeney indicated he wanted to reach a deal on the budget without a big fight.

"And it was his idea to do it earlier. He said, 'I'd like to do it and get it done earlier than normal,' and I said, 'well okay, that's under your control, so if you can do it, great, I'm in.'"

"The earlier we get it done, the better, there's no reason to have all this drama, midnight on June 30th if you don't need to."

 

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