At a time when both the federal government and the New York City government are facing big deficits, mark the difference in approach between President Bush and Mayor Bloomberg. No sooner had he gained his mandate than Mr. Bush’s administration aides began talking about the urgency of new tax cuts designed to address the supply side of the economic equation. When Mr. Bloomberg steps up to the budget issue today, he’s going to do just the opposite, plumping for huge tax increases on some of the most productive participants in the New York economy, the commuters and the owners of our property, particularly commercial establishments. As our Benjamin Smith reports at page one of today’s New York Sun, Mr. Bloomberg is proposing to soak commuters with a tax rate five times the 0.45% tax rate that was repealed in 1999. If that’s not the equivalent of building a moat around the city, we don’t know what is. The estimate is that this will cost commuters an average of about $2,500 — certainly a sum that will factor in to many commuters’ decisions as to whether they will wish to continue to work in the city. And this burden won’t be offset for commuters by the city’s income tax reduction. Nor will the income tax reduction truly offset the property tax hike of 10% to 25%. Most of that hike will be felt by the commercial owners, who already pay 44% of the city’s skewed property tax.