Cuomo’s ‘Blueprint’ for Disaster

Gov. Cuomo calls the $168.4 billion budget Albany passed Saturday a “bold blueprint,” and it is — for anyone who puts political goals over fiscal responsibility.

Recall that Cuomo faced a $4 billion hole this year, plus more pressure to lower state taxes in the wake of federal reforms. Yet instead of trimming fat, he and his legislative co-conspirators hiked spending further.

True, he claims the $100 billion state-funded part of the budget falls within his 2 percent growth cap. But that’s only thanks to accounting gimmicks that mask the true jump, which a Citizens Budget Commission analyst suspects is over 4 percent. Meanwhile, inflation has been just 1.7 percent.

Equally scary, the scheme relies on $500 million over each of the next four years from converting nonprofit health insurers to for-profit companies. If the deals don’t happen, the billions in deficits already expected in future years will only worsen.

At the same time, Albany will keep wasting billions on “economic development” pork that actually produces more corruption than help for the economy. And Cuomo nixed bills requiring more public disclosure to prevent such abuse.

“The leaders wrote billions in blank checks while doing nothing” to protect public funds, warned Reinvent Albany. It noted the convictions of two of the governor’s longtime colleagues and the upcoming trial of a third in connection with “one of the biggest bid-rigging scandals in state history.”

As The Post reported Monday, the new pork includes $3 million for a Dick’s Sporting Goods golf tournament and $100,000 for tourism in East Hampton. There was also money for upstate ski resorts — and billions in “lump-sum” grants that fail to say specifically who gets them.

It’s an election year, maybe such recklessness is to be expected. But this November will give spend-happy Democrats their best chance in years to win control of the state Senate. If that happens, New York’s fiscal footing will grow even shakier.