An agreement has been reached among state leaders to cap property tax increases.

In outline, property taxes could not be raised by more than 2 percent in any jurisdiction in any given year without the consent of 60 percent of voters casting ballots.

Some pension obligations would be excluded from the calculation, making the effective cap somewhere between 2.5 percent and 3 percent, according to Edmund J. McMahon, director of the fiscally conservative Empire Center for Public Policy.

The proposed cap has been attacked by critics as crude, painful and unfair. No less than The New York Times editorial page has characterized a cap as a “cheap political tool.”

Certainly, other states have found tax caps to be no panacea.

And here’s predicting that any meaningful cap, if adopted, is going to hurt plenty. And, yes, it will create inequities.

But we believe adoption of such a limit could prove a watershed event, forcing much-needed changes throughout the Empire State’s political economy.

Is there anyone who doesn’t think the current tax scheme already hurts? And is there anyone who doesn’t think the current tax scheme isn’t filled with inequities?

Yes, a cap will hurt and it will come with some real danger.

But the choice is between a long, slow and certain death under the current system and a limit that will force hard choices and, just maybe, some much-needed changes in spending priorities, especially in school systems….

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