A "zero deficit" law aims to end deficit spending and slash state salaries and some pensions by up to 13%.
The medicine was always the same: end all subsidies for the poor, slash state spending on health and education, deregulate your financial sector, throw your markets open.
Facing an $8 billion deficit, falling tax receipts and high unemployment, Mr. Christie said he would slash state government and compel cities and towns to spend less.
After an all-night debate, the opposition-dominated Senate approved the bill, which should end deficit spending and slash state salaries and some pensions by up to 13percentt.
Negotiators from the House and the Senate were struggling to cobble together a school finance plan that would slash state financing, integral to closing a multibillion-dollar shortfall in the state's 2012-13 budget.
Since 2002 nearly 16,000 have pledged to come and help slash state and local budgets, limit government meddling and legalise choices that do not harm others, such as drugs, gay marriage and maybe prostitution.
Moderate Republicans and Democrats have said that it was a cruel juxtaposition to slash state revenue by hundreds of millions of dollars at a time when education is underfunded by more than $400 million.
The standoff had the occasional comic tint, as when Mr. Schwarzenegger tried to slash state employees' wages to the federal minimum, a change the state controller refused to make, citing his personal opposition and an old, balky computer system.
But with capital gains and income tax revenue in free fall, the new governor's main task will be to slash state spending and try to balance the budget.
George Osborne's attempts to slash state funding for opposition parties is bad news for democracy as it increases reliance on donors and raises the potential for corruption, the Electoral Reform Society ERSS) has warned.
