Republicans take control of the state Senate bearing a gift for incoming Gov. Andrew Cuomo: an easy button.

Capitol insiders say GOPers share many of Democrat Cuomo’s priorities, especially his call to reduce state spending without raising taxes.

“It appears that on many of those levels that the incoming Gov. Andrew Cuomo is pretty much with us on some of these fiscal issues,” state Sen. Thomas Libous (R-Binghamton) told an Albany radio station.

E.J. McMahon of the Empire Center for Public Policy said the state’s fiscal crisis has left Cuomo with little choice but to cut spending – and the Republicans seem more than willing to help.

“Their rhetoric as a group is closer to the rhetoric [Cuomo] ran on,” McMahon said.

McMahon also argued that a GOP-controlled Senate likely would be better organized and easier to work with than the “chaotic” way it was under Democrats.

Even Democratic lawmakers conceded that Cuomo’s agenda would fare better with Republicans running the Senate.

“One can argue quite effectively that the so-called Democratic [Senate] majority had two years to prove themselves as being able to govern – and they failed in a very substantial way,” said an Assembly Democrat….

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