Phil Murphy and First Lady Tammy Murphy had an income of approximately $3.4 million last year, about $2 million more than it was last year.
This is contained in partial tax returns and a summary issued by the governor’s office Wednesday. The duo, who file jointly, paid about $1.3 million in federal and state taxes, the documents show.
But while the Murphys’ income leap has made headlines, Democratic leaders in Washington are worried about another concentration of wealth altogether. They scold Republicans for their continued emphasis on the rich during a protracted shutdown of government.
Senator Bernie Sanders lashed out against former President Donald Trump and GOP lawmakers, charging them with advancing policies to benefit billionaires and corporations while working families go without.
“Republicans and Donald Trump have one interest, and one interest only: making their billionaire and corporate donors richer at the expense of all others,” Sanders said.
He cited Trump administration tax legislation, which Democrats mockingly called the “big beautiful bill,” as the largest redistribution of wealth from poor and middle-class families to the wealthy in U.S. history. Sanders said the richest households got average tax cuts of $270,000 under this law while the same bill reduced food assistance for struggling families.
Sanders and the rest of the Democratic senators blamed House Republicans for failing to do their job amid the current shutdown, claiming many are “AWOL from their jobs.” “It’s easier to defend tax breaks for billionaires if you don’t even make your employees come to work,” Sanders said, referring to it as an “extraordinary” situation.
He condemned what he described as the willingness of the GOP to use ordinary Americans as bargaining chips: “They’re subjecting families to mind-numbing agony over knowing that their kids might go to bed at night hungry—all in the service of defending tax breaks for the rich,” he wrote.
Sen. Tina Smith echoed these warnings, saying Republicans were causing “horrifying pain” to working families in their efforts to force Democrats to sign a budget that maintains tax loopholes for the wealthy but cuts healthcare programs.
The legislators also accused President Trump of committing an illegal action by withholding the contingency funds during the shutdown, money usually kept to pay for emergency aid once government functions halt.
“No president in the history of this country has ignored that law,” Sanders said. “No previous president was as dedicated to helping only the rich that they were willing to cause such enormous, unconscionable harm to the poorest families.”
As the shutdown entered its fourth week, millions were left in limbo over many critical services, such as food aid and medical funding. In turn, Democrats said they are the sole “showing up to work,” calling for a stop to the impasse and calling out for accountability for what they call a “manufactured crisis” to maintain Trump’s tax cuts.
The difference between the Murphys’ multimillion-dollar income and the Democrats’ populist appeal defines the party’s dilemma. The party must find a way to square its criticism of inequality of wealth with the economic reality of some of their own leaders.
But the larger message from Washington is clear: Democrats framed the shutdown and tax fights as a struggle on behalf of working Americans against a government that they believed still catered first to the wealthy and well-connected. —DemocratsThe contrast between the Murphys’ multimillion-dollar incomes and the Democrats’ populist rhetoric illustrates the party’s predicament: squaring its denunciation of income disparity with the fiscal realities of some of its own candidates. But the broader Washington storyline is clear — Democrats are framing the shutdown and tax wars as a fight for working Americans against a government that, in their telling, continues to act first on behalf of the wealthy and well-connected.