By Matt Arco/NJ Advance Media, for NJ.com
TRENTON — In years past, Gov. Chris Christie would sign a state budget and then enjoy a victory lap around New Jersey touting it to friendly audiences.
Not so Tuesday.
The Republican governor kept to his script, pitching the new spending plan and defending his decision to drastically reduce a payment to the public worker pension system and veto Democratic bills to raise taxes on millionaires and businesses on TV and at a town hall.
But Christie was met with jeers throughout the day. Angry teachers booed at him at a swearing-in ceremony for Paterson’s new mayor, and waves of protesters were escorted out of a town hall in Caldwell for objecting to the state budget and other issues.
The combative governor didn’t hold back at the town hall, calling those objecting to him “professional protesters” backed by unions and poking fun at them for reading their statements from iPhones.
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