It’s easy to understand why Governor Paterson is trying to create a sense of crisis and urgency; without it, there is no chance of getting the Albany politicians to change their tax, borrow, and spend habits. He is right that the state is facing fiscal trouble, and he is right that the solution lies, at least in part, in belt-tightening, in doing more with less, as he put it. We hope he succeeds in his effort to get the lawmakers to “cut spending” and “cut up our credit cards.”

Still, for all that was good about Mr. Paterson’s televised address to New Yorkers yesterday, we could have done without the melodrama. It sounded as if New York was in the midst of a Great Depression rather than a mere slowdown in what is, after all, one of the most prosperous states in one of the most prosperous economies in the history of the world. The picture Mr. Paterson drew of New York families having to “choose between heating their homes and feeding their children,” of “making sure that New York families do not freeze when it gets cold,” seemed exaggerated, as did his language about how “the damage on Wall Street is infecting all of our communities” as it were some kind of plague.

We don’t mean to minimize the economic hardship of any individual or of the state as a whole. But the overall context is of a state with enormous financial, physical, and human resources. The state is blessed with a lively private sector full of immigrant entrepreneurs and small businesses. It is a magnet for tourists from around the world. The agricultural sector is benefiting from soaring food prices. Real estate in New York has so far avoided the dramatic price drops that have afflicted the rest of the country.

As some financial firms, like Bear Stearns, are failing, others, like the hedge fund Paulson & Co. and the private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., are building vast new fortunes, adding employees, and even, in KKR’s case, preparing to go public. In the past six months, hundred-million dollar gifts have been announced to NYU Medical Center, Lincoln Center’s New York City Ballet and New York City Opera, and the New York Public Library, and the year before saw a $400 million gift to Columbia. The city and state networks of philanthropies focused on the poor amount to an impressive and elaborate safety net.

That is not to say that individuals and families do not sometimes slip through, or that an economic downturn will not increase hardship. But if Mr. Paterson is to guide the state through hard times he will need to find a way not only to scare lawmakers to action and to cut spending, but also to implement policies that generate jobs and growth. These would include de-regulation and reductions in the top marginal rates — i.e., the amount of tax on the next dollar earned. And the governor will need to inspire confidence in the citizens in the state by reminding us of our strengths as well as our vulnerabilities, for in those strengths lie the solutions to the vulnerabilities.