Governor Pataki will speak to the Association for a Better New York this afternoon on the subject of New York’s fiscal crisis, as a prelude to his budget presentation on January 29. We understand that he will make the case for resisting tax hikes, and indeed for cutting taxes, in the face of unprecedented deficits totaling more than $12 billion in a $90 billion budget. He’ll embroider an argument he made in his State of the State speech earlier this month. It’s terrific to see Mr. Pataki’s apparent return to the conservative fold, after a leftward meander in his second term and reelection campaign. But the proof of Mr. Pataki’s promises in the end will be in the doing.

The governor and his aides insist, for example, on using “job-killing taxes” to name what they deplore. Some in Albany, either wishfully or fearfully, hear wiggle room in those words, as if he could find a tax that would not further weaken the state’s economy. The fact is that all taxes deserve the job-killing sobriquet — including the state tariff on cigarettes that Mr. Pataki and his friend in the labor movement, Dennis Rivera, so gleefully tripled to $1.50 per pack over the past three years — and the governor would do well to drop the modifier.

Mr. Pataki’s response to Mayor Bloomberg’s proposal for reinstating a tax on commuters is encouraging, but less than totally encouraging. On a radio talk show he allowed that he would not propose such a thing in his own budget, but, in the same breath, declined “to predict what the Legislature may or may not do.” As Albany’s Kremlinologists will explain, that locution leaves the door wide open. The governor’s speech today at the Waldorf-Astoria looks a lot like an appeal for conservative cover as he begins to extricate himself from campaign promises and wrestle at last with New York’s bloated government.

Those that we’ve talked to would be happier to help if Mr. Pataki’s approach strikes a contrast to that of the governor’s fellow Republican, Mr. Bloomberg. But Mr. Pataki offered no significant objection when Mr. Bloomberg and the City Council conspired to raise property taxes 18.5%. He made no protest at the city’s refusal to cut spending or make a serious effort at trimming waste from the city budget. One can say that the property tax was outside Albany’s control. But other revenue-raising schemes for the city, including the commuter tax, will have to cross the governor’s desk. If Mr. Pataki succeeds in resisting taxes and holding down the size of state government in a recession, he might show our mayor a thing or two.