Hopes that Governor Pataki is returning to the conservative principles of his first term will be dimmed by his insistence on signing a so-called “heart bill” for emergency medical technicians in the city Fire Department. The legislation, which the governor signed late last month in the face of a historic city, state, and federal budget crisis, grants 3,000 EMTs and paramedics the presumption that any heart ailment developed during their employment is job-related, thereby making them eligible for retirement at 75% of their salary, reports Fredric Dicker of the New York Post. Until now only the city’s police, firefighters, correction officers, and court officers have had “heart bill” protection. Mr. Dicker quotes a city official as warning, “This will open the floodgates for thousands of other city workers to demand the same kind of treatment.” The cost will no doubt run to the tens of millions of dollars.

According to Mr. Dicker, Mayor Bloomberg and aides sought feverishly to warn the governor off of this folly. He quotes a letter the mayor sent saying the city’s budget situation “reinforces the city’s opposition and belief that this proposal is ill-timed.” And Mr. Dicker quotes a city official as claiming that the governor signed the measure to deliver on a political deal tied to his bid for re-election. Certainly the maneuver is a classic case of concentrated benefits and distributed costs, meaning ripping off the rest of us to help the few. For those of us who are spending conservatives, it is the road to folly. We challenge the governor to name another jurisdiction that has these kinds of benefits. Certainly the state does not for its own troopers (although we understand that their heart conditions are almost always deemed to be job-related nevertheless). In any event, if he is really talking about a return to fiscal probity and conservatism — and for that matter, angling for a job in Washington — this is exactly the kind of thing he shouldn’t be doing.