It’s nice to think that the Democratic mayoral candidate, Fernando Ferrer, has finally caught on to the damage high taxes are doing to the city’s economy and has even proposed a tax cut. The former president of the Bronx yesterday put up a plank called the “Home Owner Property Exemption,” or HOPE. Under the plan, New Yorkers owning and residing in homes valued up to $800,000 would be exempt from property taxes on $100,000 of that value, which he says works out to a tax cut of $973 for all eligible homeowners. Those with abodes worth more than $800,000 would continue to receive the current $400 rebate that Mayor Bloomberg has instituted.

So far so good, but the plan is all downhill from there because Mr. Ferrer insists on paying for his property tax reductions – and for a related tax cut for low- and moderate-income renters – in part with a tax increase by extending the so-called millionaire’s tax, an income-tax surcharge on New Yorkers earning more than $500,000 a year that brings in $380 million a year and is supposed to sunset at the end of the year. This on top of the $1 billion stock transfer tax the candidate proposed back in primary season. So homeowners who earn high incomes or buy mutual funds would be unlikely to emerge as net winners under Mayor Ferrer.

More than anything, this plan represents a missed opportunity. By waiting until days before the general election to take on the mayor’s record on taxes, Mr. Ferrer denied New Yorkers a vigorous debate about what kind of taxing and spending policies would be best for the city. The mayor is plenty vulnerable to the right kind of attack on his tax policies: he increased property tax rates and himself lobbied Albany at one point for an extension of the millionaire’s tax. By opting to “pay for” a cut in one tax with an increase in another instead of offering up spending cuts, Mr. Ferrer passed on the chance to hit another weak spot; the mayor would have been vulnerable on spending restraint after signing a deal with the teachers’ union that offered them unusually generous annual raises.

We don’t mind saying that we’re happy to see a Democrat calling attention to the plight of overtaxed New Yorkers, something too few politicians in the city seem to be willing to do. And we have long felt that this is an issue on which the Democrats ought to be able to find their footing. Tax reductions, after all, have a positive effect on employment – indeed, they ignite the growth of private sector jobs. It’s just tragic to see Democrats enter this fray so diffidently and without a full fluency in the principles. The way the polls are pointing now it’s going to be hard for the Democrats to make headway with half-hearted measures, and it looks like New Yorkers will find themselves looking at Mr. Ferrer’s plan and thinking of the mayoral race that might have been.