President Weingarten of the United Federation of Teachers was laughing heartily when Governor Pataki formally accepted yesterday the teachers’ endorsement of his bid for a third term. This came on the heels of Mayor Bloomberg’s admission, at a press conference earlier this week, that the budget crisis may be worse than that which began in 1975 and brought the city to the verge of bankruptcy. The sort of politics that might allow for a relapse of that not-so-distant fiscal crisis are well-snapped in the photograph of the delighted Ms. Weingarten. Certainly Carl McCall isn’t smiling. Mr. McCall has suggested that Ms. Weingarten’s endorsement was purchased with the $200 million the state lent the city to pay teachers, in exchange for which the teachers consented to allow the mayor to control the school system.

The governor, of course, has also struck deals with Dennis Rivera’s Service Employees Local 1199, which represents Em ployees of the city’s Department of Health and Human Services. In effect, he exchanged raises and benefits for an endorsement (a flush 1199 just turned to foreign policy with a full-page advertisement in yesterday’s New YorkTimes opposing war with Iraq). The governor has struck similar bargains with various unions, which also give him, and deprive the Democrats of, their get-outthe-vote operations. These deals are financed by state’s taxpayers not only through workers’ salaries, but, inter alia, through a commitment to the bloated, tax-payer funded education and health infrastructures from within which the UFT and the SEIU respectively operate.

This is the context in which Mr. Bloomberg conceded the budget gap is “bigger than it has ever been before.” Last year a deficit nearly as large was covered through borrowing to pay for operating expenses. This year neither loans nor state or federal aid are realistic options. Yet the mayor has hardly broached the subject of layoffs, most particularly not of teachers. Instead, he’s instituted 7.5% across-the-board cuts to city agencies, perhaps intended to send the signal that we all must make sacrifices. Either Hizzoner is waiting until after the November election so as not to damage Governor Pataki’s electioneering in the city — or he just doesn’t want to do the hard part of governing, which is prioritizing spending. What you get is things like the city trying to cut the funds of the Manhattan DA in the midst of a white collar crime wave.

What the state and the city need are measures on the supply side, lower taxes, spending cuts, deregulation. One would have thought the place to start, and urgently, would have been schools. Simply put, the school control deal mandates that beginning next year, funding must increase from the level of the previous year, and so on in each additional year. Thus any cuts in this year’s budget would generate recurrent savings. The system’s inefficiencies provide plenty of room for cuts without harming children. But Mr. Bloomberg seems to be spending his political capital on his anti-smoking campaign. All this is by way of saying that the respective leaders of the city and state have been placing election year politics ahead of fiscal responsibilities. “George Pataki has listened to our concerns,” said Ms. Weingarten.”What’s more, he’s followed through.” No wonder she’s laughing.