Looking at the current fiscal situation in New York City and State, one can find plenty of blame to go around. In the special sampler on the budget in today’s New York Sun, a number of prominent New Yorkers offered up their culprits: higher spending on things like Medicaid and municipal labor costs, and lower revenues from a slumping stock market and a national recession — both worsened by September 11, 2001.

Some, however, such as Ed Ott of the Central Labor Council and Senate Minority Leader David Paterson, blame tax cuts. Others point out that the tax cuts Governor Pataki signed upon entering office were the largest of any state at the time and helped to unlock one of the greatest economic booms that the state has ever seen. Manhattan Institute fiscal policy expert E.J. McMahon points out in his comments that after cutting taxes New York actually exceeded the nation’s job growth rate at the end of the decade.

Even assuming that having left tax rates where they were would mean more revenue today — not a certainty given the growth those taxes would have stunted — no serious person can argue that the money wouldn’t have been frittered away by now. We’d be in the same lurch, and the proponents of larger government would still be calling for even higher taxes. It’s something to keep in mind as the Legislature and Mayor Bloomberg raise taxes while refusing to cut the size of government. Once we’re in the thick of the next budget disaster, there ought to be no question whom to blame.