As he girds for battle over next year’s state budget, Gov. Spitzer should dig out his old campaign commercials for inspiration.

Especially relevant is the spot where he laid out his “day one” to-do list, vowing to boost everything from the middle-class standard of living to high school graduation rates.

It ended with the boldest, most important promise of all: “There’s one thing we’re not going to raise – your taxes,” Spitzer said. “You can take that to the bank.”

Keeping his word will not be easy in the months ahead. Closing a projected $4.3 billion gap in the next fiscal year without hiking taxes means Spitzer will have to slash spending in ways that are sure to push his sagging poll numbers even lower.

He will also have to cross swords with the wealthy interest groups that have the run of the Capitol – not to mention face down 212 members of the Legislature counting on a spending binge to grease their path to reelection next fall.

Unfortunately, there are already signs that the scandal-damaged Democrat is ready to wave the white flag.

For one thing, his budget office is already talking about letting spending soar at almost twice the rate of inflation. Mind you, this is before a single day of hard bargaining with the Assembly or Senate.

Instead of the Consumer Price Index – which is the standard Albany has used (and violated) for generations – Spitzer is using personal income growth as his budgeting benchmark. By that logic, the governor could get away with spending hikes of up to 5.3%, when inflation is about 3%, and still call himself fiscally responsible.

Even if that were true, it’s a mistake to show his hand this early. Albany budget negotiations are always a dickering process. The governor starts low, the Legislature starts high and they eventually meet in the middle.

“If you propose a spending increase of 5%, what you’ll wind up with is a spending increase of 7%, if not 8%,” warns E.J. McMahon of the Empire Center for Public Policy.

Also troubling is the continuing talk of “closing loopholes” in the tax code. One example of that thinking popped out of Spitzer’s tax department last month, when it quietly ordered Amazon.com and other out-of-state Internet retailers to start collecting sales taxes.

Spitzer thankfully scratched the idea, declaring that the holiday shopping season “is not the right time to be increasing sales taxes on New Yorkers.” But you can bet Spitzer’s budget team is scouring the tax code for other stealth hikes it can impose without inviting political blowback.

The defenders of this approach will call it “reform.” But real reform would be revenue-neutral. Closing a loophole without simultaneously cutting the overall rate is a tax increase by another name – and a violation of the spirit of Spitzer’s campaign promise.

Spitzer isn’t the only one in Albany shaking the trees for more Benjamins. On a capital radio show yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno rejected out of hand the idea of modestly trimming the state workforce – through attrition, not layoffs – as a way of balancing the budget books.

“I don’t think that’s the way to go,” said Bruno, whose members are angling for endorsements from public employee unions. “We have to look at revenue.”

He said he will bring a list of $5billion in “available resources” to the budget table – mostly one-time sources of cash, but also various taxes that the state is theoretically owed but now go uncollected.

That spend-every-last-dollar-you-can-find approach practically guarantees tax hikes – if not this year, then down the road when the bill comes due.

The buck stops with the governor. Failing to control spending and prevent tax hikes would destroy what’s left of his credibility and push New York’s teetering economy toward a job-killing downturn.

That would set Spitzer up to be the first one-term governor since the 1950s.

You can take that to the bank.

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