There’s a yin-and-yang aspect to two pieces of the “2015 Opportunity Agenda” Gov. Andrew Cuomo revealed in advance of Wednesday’s combined State of the State and budget address.

There is bold:

Cuomo wants to pit seven Upstate regions against one another for $1.5 billionin one-time state aid made possible by multibillion-dollar bank settlements. Only three will win awards of up to $500 million. The competition rewards strategies that aim to transform Upstate’s lagging economy. If it’s done right, as appears to be happening with the “Buffalo Billion,” Upstate’s future trajectory might be changed in a meaningful and permanent way.

And there is timid:

Cuomo’s proposal for yet another property tax rebate for homeowners nibbles around the edges of New York’s highest-in-the-nation tax burden. It’s frightfully complicated and does not address the root causes of high taxes – costly mandates and a fundamental, long-term shift of the burden of supporting schools and municipalities from state to local taxpayers.

To his credit, Cuomo has tried a lot of things to get a handle on property taxes. First came the 2 percent tax cap, which succeeded in focusing attention on holding down government spending. Last year he offered tax rebate checks contingent on municipalities staying under the tax cap and making moves to share services or consolidate. We called it a $2 billion Band-Aid.

This new property tax “circuit-breaker” proposal will help middle-class taxpayers the most. It would not apply to commercial property owners, though the governor has hinted at business tax relief to be included in the budget. To quote the Empire Center for Public Policy, the circuit-breaker treats “the symptom (very high property taxes) rather than the disease (very high local spending).”

And did we mention it was frightfully complicated? New York’s tax code needs to get simpler, not more complex.

As the newly re-elected governor and legislative leaders embark on negotiations over the next budget, we urge them to stop nibbling at the edges of the state’s tax structure. A top-to-bottom overhaul is in order. Breaking the back of high property and individual income taxes through mandate reform, strategic investments in our schools and cities and smarter use of economic incentives would make New York a better place to live, work and do business.

Meanwhile, Central New York’s political, business and community leaders have a lot of work ahead of them. They need to come together around an inclusive, creative, collaborative and ultimately winning pitch for Cuomo’s $500 million prize.

In announcing the Upstate competition, Cuomo said the Buffalo Billion was something of a misnomer. Only about half of that has been spent. The real value, he said, lay in the local thought process that went into deciding how best to spend it.

If it feels like we’ve been down this road before, we have, in countless iterations of regional economic development plans. The difference this time is the pot of gold at the end of this road — and its potential to flip the switch from pessimism to optimism in Syracuse and Central New York.

© 2015 Syracuse Media Group