Albany’s Endless Hunger To Spend

State lawmakers must be smoking some of that wacky tobacky they legalized, because the one-house budget bills they passed this week are utterly off the rails.

The bills up Gov. Hochul’s proposed spending by $13 billion. Lawmakers would shell out nearly a quarter of a trillion — $246 billion — for the fiscal year starting April 1.

It’s an Olympic leap of $73 billion, or about 42%, over just five years ago.

Much of the lawmakers’ outlays would go to the state’s education and health-care industries, whose unions lord over Albany lawmakers. The Assembly, for example, adds a whopping $5.1 billion to Hochul’s $45.8 billion for the State Education Department.

Both houses add billions to Medicaid spending, rejecting the gov’s modest efforts at cost control, though New York’s per-capita Medicaid costs are the highest of any state, 70% above the national average, per the Empire Center.

Smaller outlays shout “drunken sailor,” too:

⏺$80 million for a new “Cannabis Rescue and Relief Fund” to help the weed industry — even while lawmakers refuse to make it easier to close illegal pot shops, which would help legal sellers.

⏺$10 million for toll-free calls for inmates. $10 million for a minority- and womenbusiness startup venture capital fund.

⏺$175 million for health care for illegal migrants.

Meanwhile, the state faces $15 billion-plus in red ink over the next few years.

The radical takeover of the Legislature has subjected New Yorkers to enormous misery — soaring crime, the ever-present stench of pot, an explosion of homeless and mentally ill people on the streets. If the Legislature gets even a fraction of what it’s seeking, you can add a looming budget crisis to that.