With both the Senate and the governor’s mansion in the hands of Republicans, one would think Albany would be rushing to approve the $400 property tax rebate approved by the New York City Council this week at the behest of Mayor Bloomberg, himself a Republican. After all, Republicans are supposed to be for tax cuts. And New York, despite a Republican governor and a Republican state Senate, has the mark of being the state with the highest state and local tax burden in the nation.

Yet instead of approving the rebate this week, the state Legislature went ahead with plans to skip town until August 2. It’s an imperious and disrespectful attitude toward New York City’s taxpayers, who would like to know that at least some tax relief is on the way.

The Democratic speaker of the City Council, Gifford Miller, during a recent visit to the editorial rooms of The New York Sun, stressed the point that city residents pay billions more in taxes to the state government at Albany than they get back in services. Asked about whether the city should secede from New York state, he said he found such talk helpful, because it underscored the point about imbalance of payments.

However that may be, our own view is that New York City doesn’t need more money from either Washington or Albany, but a smaller municipal government that does less. What it would still do, it could do more efficiently, for less money. One way to get to that point is through tax cuts that reduce the amount of money the politicians have to spend, forcing the city to economize.

If Albany wants to tinker with the tax cuts constructively, and bring some economists in for hearings about why a marginal income tax cut for the rich would be better for growth than the Bloomberg property tax rebate, that would be one thing. But leaving the capital for a sixweek-long summer vacation — sorry, district work period — when there’s a chance to pass a tax cut is the sort of thing that gives the Albany politicians bad names.

If Mr. Miller or Mr. Bloomberg want to have some fun with this, they might try writing and sending to Albany a New York City Tax Independence Act — a state law giving the city the right to set its own local taxes without Albany’s approval, so long as the new taxes do not have the effect of increasing the tax burden of any taxpayer. In other words, keep the state safeguard in place to prevent the city politicians from raising taxes in the city, but eliminate the state safeguard when it comes to lowering taxes, thereby making tax cuts easier.