Subway pickpockets

At a moment when the subways and buses need all the help they can get, Gov. Cuomo and the Legislature have shortchanged the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s riders by $65 million. Unfortunately, this kind of underground larceny is perfectly legal. But that doesn’t make it right.

We expected better of Cuomo, who — at least since he gloried in opening the Second Ave. Subway — proudly claims leadership of the agency that keeps the city moving and its economy humming.

Here’s what happened. Years ago, the state passed a tax requiring all employers to pay a tiny fraction of their payroll — between .11% to .34% — to support the MTA.

Some small businesses and school districts were then made exempt, with Cuomo promising a “dollar for dollar” replacement of the lost revenue from the state’s general fund, year-in, year-out.

Didn’t happen. While the tax levy woulda, coulda delivered a rising amount of money — up 17% from 2013 — the grant from Cuomo has been flat.

And now it’s actually dipped. This year, Cuomo gave the city just $244 million, a big $65 million short of the “dollar for dollar” promise. Which means less cash for transit service as straphangers, who are battling daily delays the likes of which we haven’t seen in years, just had fares climb 4%.

When Daily News transit reporter Dan Rivoli exposed the finagling, lawmakers squawked. But did nothing to get the money restored.

The best they can point to is an advance payment of $65 million toward the MTA’s capital plan, a shifting of money that does nothing to augment service today and in all likelihood won’t appreciably matter to capital spending years down the road anyway.

It only lets Cuomo and legislators pretend that they did something. Pretending is something that they are pretty good at up in Albany.