Late last month, Mayor Bloomberg called reporters to Grand Central Terminal to deliver the first major policy pronouncement of his re-election campaign. Before he unveiled his proposal, he made a promise – that none of his second-term campaign goals would require citizens to pay more taxes.

Mr. Bloomberg’s September 29 vow, which pertained only to his new campaign goals, might not have been the toughest no-new-taxes pledge that New Yorkers have heard in recent years, but it was certainly stronger on the tax front than anything put forward by his Democratic opponent.

The Democratic mayoral nominee, Fernando Ferrer, has yet to make any sweeping taxation promises, but the campaign plans he has unveiled seem to indicate that he values taxing and spending more than cutting.

At least two of his campaign proposals involve large tax hikes and one promises tax savings.

To fund his education plan, Mr. Ferrer proposed implementing a “stock transfer tax” that would levy $1.1 billion a year on stock transactions to pay for what he considers to be the city’s share of the bill in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity case. He claims the city education spending would “leverage” the rest of the equity funds from Albany.

Mr. Ferrer’s housing plan calls for boosting property taxes by $900 million in the next decade to help build and preserve “affordable housing.” He said he would save $715 million a year by reducing Medicaid fraud and cutting bureaucracy, while his new plan to enroll more children and adults in the system would cost $260 million a year.

“Freddy’s offered bold and innovative plans to build and maintain 167,000 units of affordable housing, leverage the $23 billion in CFE money that Albany owes our school kids, and get health insurance for hundreds of thousands New Yorkers in ways that burden the fewest people,” a Ferrer spokeswoman, Christy Setzer, said. “By contrast, Mike Bloomberg’s hit New York City property owners with a one-two punch: an 18.5% property tax hike in 2003 and another tax hike this year.”

Taxation authorities say neither candidate is a particularly good choice for voters who want lower taxes, especially given that Mr. Bloomberg broke his 2001 campaign pledge not to raise taxes.

“Voters are not being asked to choose,” a Manhattan Institute scholar, E.J. McMahon, said. “In 2001, they were being asked to choose between a guy who was open to raising taxes and a guy who indicated he didn’t like the idea and who ran as the political heir to a guy who was known as a tax-cutter. This year you have a guy who is not particularly concerned about high taxes running against a guy who would like to make taxes higher.”

Mr. McMahon said Messrs. Bloomberg and Ferrer could learn a lesson from Rep. Anthony Weiner, who finished second in the Democratic primary.

“I think Weiner’s quick climb may indicate that people are susceptible to hearing more about taxes than they’re hearing from the major party candidates right now,” he said.

New York City’s voters consistently tell pollsters that taxes are very important to them.

A Quinnipiac University poll released late last month found that taxes are “very important” to 67% of city voters and “somewhat important” to 23% of voters.

Taxes have not made much of a showing on this year’s campaign trail. To date, although the city faces a $4.5 billion budget gap in 2007, neither candidate has dedicated much time to talking about cutting spending.

Some political observers said it would be wise for the candidates to address their taxing and spending philosophies in more depth before the November election.

As City Council Member James Oddo put it: “Regardless of who wins on November 8, on November 9 the story of the day is to the victor: How are you going to handle a $4.5 deficit over the next three years?”

Others, however, said although New Yorkers say taxes are important, little precedent exists for voting against politicians because of their tax policies.

The director of the Pace Poll, Jonathan Trichter, said, “I can’t think of a New York City politician that lost his job for raising taxes, but I can think of plenty who did for budget cuts.”