Earth to gubernatorial candidates: Shifting the tax burden from one tax to another is not what most people call a tax “cut.” It’s just a tax sleight of hand, and it’s not what New Yorkers need or want out of a candidate for the state’s highest office this year. Yet that’s what we’ve gotten from two such candidates in the past five days. First came Republican John Faso’s $6.8 billion plan for controlling school property taxes. Next came Democrat Thomas Suozzi’s $5 billion “Taxpayer Savings Plan.” Both would only pass the tax buck.

Mr. Faso targets the property taxes that fund education with a three-prong strategy. He is at his best when he sets education spending in his sight. The costs drive taxes, and the costs are out of control, having risen 58% in the past 10 years and now ranking second in the country in per pupil terms. Mr. Faso would address this by repealing the union-friendly Wicks Law that drives up construction expenses and by giving districts more power to stand up for taxpayers in contract negotiations with teachers. He would also cap increases in property taxes to the lesser of 4% a year or inflation, unless enrollment increased or voters supported an increase with a two-third vote.

An A for effort so far, but Mr. Faso earns an F on the third of his prongs, his proposal to double STAR exemptions. The School Tax Relief program, a brainchild of Governor Pataki, uses state income tax money to offset local property taxes by effectively paying part of the property tax bill. It’s often billed as a tax “cut,” but an expert on New York fiscal policy at the Manhattan Institute’s Empire Center, E.J. McMahon, has noted that STAR is only a tax “shift,” substituting the state income tax for part of the local property tax.

According to a recent report from Mr. McMahon, STAR currently eats 10% of the state’s personal income tax revenues and, at $3.2 billion, is one of the largest single items in the state budget. Property taxes are still too high, having shot up 28% for homeowners, between 2001 and 2005, even accounting for STAR, while increases on commercial- and rental property owners have been even more dramatic since they don’t qualify for STAR. Mr. McMahon notes that the reason is STAR itself. By insulating most homeowners from the full marginal costs of increased school spending, STAR actually encourages voters to approve more spending. One gets the feeling Mr. Faso hasn’t thought through what effect this would have on his two-third vote idea.

Mr. Suozzi offers a five-point plan that, though it contains good elements, ends up a shell game. He proposes reducing the state workforce by 10% over three years, primarily through attrition and an early-retirement plan. He would tackle Medicaid, both by combating fraud and by reforming the program to reduce, for example, long-term care costs. He would reform public employee pensions by creating a fifth, more realistic, tier for new state employees. He would also take a bite out of the state’s debt burden, leading to long-term savings through reduced interest payments. So far, so good.

It’s all undone, however, by Mr. Suozzi’s fifth point, “Broadening the Sales Tax Base.” First, he would shift the burden for collecting sales tax to wholesalers from retailers, making it easier for the state to tell how much sales tax it is owed and cutting down on fraud. Reducing sales tax fraud would supposedly collect $1 billion a year. Mr. Suozzi would also collect “hundreds of millions of dollars” in additional taxes by tacking state sales taxes onto purchases New Yorkers make on the Internet. In theory, such taxes can already be collected by enforcement of the “use tax” on goods purchased elsewhere for use in New York (Dennis Koslowski ran afoul of this law), but the tax has rarely been collected on ordinary purchases. In 1992, Governor Cuomo made a fool of himself by sending agents to stake out a New Jersey Ikea parking lot in an ill-fated attempt to enforce use taxes.

While tax broadening has its place, especially in the world of income tax, where everyone should pay a little instead of a few people paying a lot, a promise to collect new sales taxes is more than a little out of place in a tax relief package. What Mr. Suozzi proposes amounts to a major tax increase. Lower income or property taxes as a result of Mr. Suozzi’s government belt-tightening won’t be much of a boon if New Yorkers have to fork over new sales taxes on their purchases over the Internet.

Both Messrs. Faso and Suozzi have drawn the connection between government spending and tax rates, which counts as an accomplishment of sorts. They offer some intriguing ideas for how to reduce that spending; Mr. Suozzi is especially close to the mark when he talks about controlling government-employee pensions and debt. But neither has quite caught on to the quaint notion that cutting a tax ought to lead to lower overall taxes. If what they want to do is protect revenues, the way to do it is by a reduction in top marginal rates, i.e., on the rate of taxation on the next dollar earned. This was the supply-side revolution that was ushered in by Representative Kemp and Senator Roth and by President Reagan and that produced the economic expansion of the following generation. There’s no reason why the laws of economics shouldn’t apply in the Empire State.