It was quite a rhetorical assault for the mayor of New York City to launch on a new newspaper. Testifying Monday in Albany before the State Assembly, Mayor Bloomberg was asked by Assemblyman Thomas Barraga from West Islip whether the city might consider selling off some of its buildings instead of raising taxes. Mr. Bloomberg responded by citing a series of editorials in “a local newspaper” that recommended selling Gracie Mansion. He said state laws governing parks would get in the way and that he wasn’t sure who would want to buy it. “Facts didn’t get in the way of this editorial writer. Although with this particular editorial writer facts never seem to,” Mr. Bloomberg said.

Well, we’re flattered that the mayor is among the growing number of New York Sun readers, and that he still remembers that editorial of November 19, 2002, which ran under the headline,”Sell Gracie Mansion.” It was the first in a series of our editorials on closing the city’s budget gap. And it anticipated the mayor’s complaint about state law. “Others may object that the sale of city parkland, on which the mansion sits, is subject to all sorts of restrictions from Albany. But that is mere buckpassing,” the editorial said. The mayor’s control of the city’s public schools was limited by state laws, and the mayor used his political strength to get the law changed. We’re sure that there would be no shortage of sponsors in the assembly of a bill that would give Mr. Bloomberg permission to sell Gracie Mansion.

As for Mr. Bloomberg’s objection that he wasn’t sure who would buy it, there would be an easy way to tell: Put the mansion up for sale. The city has already moved to sell 110 Livingston Street, the dreary office building in downtown Brooklyn that used to house the city’s public school bureaucrats. If it can find a taker for that, why should it be hard to find a buyer for a lovely mansion on the residential Upper East Side?

Our editorial on Gracie Mansion was intended to be provocative, but to mark a serious point. Here the city is facing a fiscal crisis, and you’d think the mayor would want to be scrambling to provide increased incentives to those thinking of doing business here. Instead, he’s opted to raise taxes on those who live here and to try raising taxes on commuters. For those who suggest efficiencies or savings or creative ideas, Mr. Bloomberg has derision. “You can’t just say let’s go cut out corruption, waste, and meaningless programs. Because fundamentally, they don’t exist,” Mr. Bloomberg said on November 14, 2002.

That was the comment that prompted our series of editorials. We’ve pointed pointed out that it costs $91 an hour to run a public bus in New York City, but only $59 an hour in Long Island and $57 an hour in New Jersey. That it costs $170 a day to house a prisoner in a New York City jail, but only $43 a day in Cook County, Illinois, which runs the Chicago jails, and $49 a day in Los Angeles County. That the New York City Catholic schools educate children in kindergarten through eighth grade for $3,200 a pupil, while the city’s government-run public schools spend about $10,000 a student. And that Mr. Bloomberg has a city-owned mansion at his disposal, which the city’s mayors got along just fine without until 1942. Chicago’s mayor gets along fine without a mansion today.

Mr. Bloomberg’s response to all this has been to complain about our editorials. But the problem isn’t with The New York Sun. It’s with Mr. Bloomberg’s policies.

It’s not just The New York Sun, after all, that believes that Mr. Bloomberg’s penchant for raising taxes, and his unwillingness to curb spending, hurt the city. There are other newspapers with editorials, too. The New York Post, in an editorial, described the mayor’s budget philosophy as, “Sock the taxpayer.” A Daily News editorial said, “New Yorkers are paying higher taxes, which costs the city jobs.”

And there are the think tanks and civic watchdog groups. Steven Malanga wrote in the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal that Mr. Bloomberg “naively believes that New York’s government is the optimal size and can’t be cut.” The president of New York Civic, Henry Stern, a veteran of the city government, said he hopes that Mr. Bloomberg will “effectively wage war on waste, inefficiency, duplication, unnecessary paperwork and ludicrous contracting procedures.” To do this, Mr. Stern said, “he must first learn that waste exists, that it is substantial, and then, where it can be found.” The Citizens Budget Commission has outlined $1 billion in potential savings for the city.

Even some politicians are getting the idea. Mr. Bloomberg’s fellow Republican members of the City Council are so fed up with him they walked out of a recent dinner. And the city’s voters are getting the idea, too. A New YorkTimes poll in mid-January showed Mr. Bloomberg earning a disapproval rating of 53% and an approval rating of 31%.

Mr. Bloomberg has actually begun to move — too cautiously for our taste — to rein in some of the waste in city government, particularly in the public schools. But there’s plenty more to be done.