The MTA’s Jay Walder deserves great credit for standing firm against the transit “advocates” and elected officials who would like him to devote up to $160 million in capital-investment funds for short-term operating expenses, including rising union-labor costs.

A few weeks back, Walder made a particularly impassioned case on the point before State Senators, comparing the suggestion to the practices that got New York and the transit system in so much trouble in the Seventies.

But. In today’s Post, reporters Sally Goldenberg and Tom Namako present a hint that the MTA may be wavering, as its fiscal situation has fast deteriorated in recent weeks by another $400 million. “We still think it’s a bad idea to use capital dollars,” MTA spokesman Jeremy Soffin told the paper. “That said, we are required to have a balanced budget and everything needs to be on the table.”

If the MTA gives in here, its no comfort to riders and taxpayers that it did so protesting …