The governments of Maine and New Jersey have shut down

(Image credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

published 1 July 2017

The governments of Maine and New Jersey entered a partial shutdown Saturday after lawmakers in both states failed to reach a budget agreement with their respective governors.

In Maine, the fight is about taxes. "The Maine people are taxed enough. I will not tax them anymore and in my budget overall taxes were decreased," Maine Gov. Paul LePage said in his shutdown announcement. The legislature's budget proposes a 3 percent tax hike on Maine residents with an annual income of at least $200,000.

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.