Associated PressGov. David Paterson listens to a speaker during a legislative leaders meeting at the Capitol.

New York Gov. David Paterson told legislative leaders today that if they won’t consider his plan to cap Albany’s notorious overspending, then he’ll impose the cap himself.

The Democratic governor was frustrated with legislative leaders who haven’t even introduced or debated his proposal for a spending cap tied to a three-year average inflation rate. Paterson sent the proposal to the Senate and Assembly May 4. The regular session ends in four weeks.

“They’ve done nothing, absolutely nothing,” Paterson told The Associated Press. He said that 30 other state have passed spending caps.

Paterson said this is the only proposal he sent to the Legislature that wasn’t introduced as a bill.

“At the same time, they are passing legislation that increases spending,” Paterson said. “But I will stop it … I think that’s why the public has been generally frustrated with the Legislature and myself. They expect responsibility to come from here.”

The governor, who is at his lowest point in the polls, said he’s ready to push hard for a spending cap and will quash legislative spending bills using his veto power if lawmakers don’t act on his proposal to establish one.

Paterson said the cap is needed now to avoid overspending as federal economic stimulus cash ends over the next two years and a temporary increase in the income tax on wealthier New Yorkers expires in three years.

“I don’t think my veto will be overridden,” Paterson said. “And in terms of legislative spending, we will get to austerity if I don’t see some progress here.”

“Good,” said E.J. McMahon, director of the Empire Center for Public Policy, part of the fiscally conservative Manhattan Institute. “If he decides to do that, he can accomplish whatever he thinks the cap should be … he already has, constitutionally, the power to enforce ultimately the same power the spending cap would create.”

Dean Skelos, the Senate’s Republican minority leader, said last week he might block an override attempt if it would curb spending and taxes. He has 30 of the Senate’s 32 seats, and the chamber would need a two-thirds vote to override a veto.

“When you’re right, you’re right,” Skelos said of the governor’s idea.

Skelos pointed to a Buffalo News story featuring a family that owns a business with 21 employees that decided to move to Florida because of New York’s high taxes. That report comes a week billionaire philanthropist B. Thomas Golisano of Rochester announced he was moving his official residence to Florida to save $5 million a year in New York income taxes.

A Siena College poll this week found 21 percent of New Yorkers say they’ll move out of the state if economic conditions don’t improve, and almost half of them would like to move “as quickly as I can.”

Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith said he was surprised the governor is threatening to impose a cap.

“I understand he would like us to move on his legislation and I think we are open to doing that, so long as we think it’s reasonable,” said Smith, who favors cutting waste and “excess” jobs first. “I don’t know if that is the way to get us to do that, though.”

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