Mayor Bloomberg's 2006 Executive Budget is technically balanced but points to huge out-year shortfalls, despite the economic recovery and surging tax revenues.

E.J. McMahon, the Empire Center's director, discusses the mayor's seemingly split personality on fiscal issues in an op-ed article in today's New York Post. Key outtake:

"Bloomberg the pol naturally wants to highlight the good news about life in today's New York ...

"But Bloomberg the no-nonsense CEO is congenitally incapable of blurring the bottom line. And so the mayor also matter-of-factly volunteered that "this city spends more money than it takes in, in an average year." Some $3.7 billion more next year, to be exact, once you adjust for all the gimmickry and lucky breaks the city has depended on to balance its budgets over the past few years.

"The underlying structural imbalance in the city's financial plan has gotten $3 billion worse since Fiscal 2001."

The official budget documents are posted here.