Meanwhile, Rep. Anthony Weiner has been sounding downright mayoral lately, calling for serious public-employee benefit reform as a way to slash City Hall’s long-term financial burden.

“Future employees should expect they’re going to pay more for their health care,” said the Brooklyn Democrat.

“The days of having a guaranteed defined-benefit pension are probably not going to be around much longer” either, he warned.

He’s abolutely right on both counts, of course.

Indeed, as a report this month from the Citizens Budget Commission details, the average city employee now costs the taxpayers fully $107,000 a year – with $38,000 of that sum going for benefits like pensions and health care.

What’s more, the per-employee benefits burden has nearly tripled since 2000 – while the actual cost of living has increased a comparatively modest 25 percent.

It doesn’t take much to realize that those numbers are completely unsustainable – or that Weiner, who’s running hard for mayor this year, clearly sees an opening to attack Mayor Bloomberg’s fiscal record.

Still, he’s to be applauded for running so publicly athwart the city’s powerful public-employee unions – for whom the prospect of benefits in line with most private-sector workers is anathema.

The congressman, to be sure, was singing a different tune during his longshot mayoral bid in 2005, when he declared his devotion to the union-driven status quo.

But that was then.

These days, Gotham’s hard-up taxpayers can’t take much more abuse – as even the potential Democratic front-runner for mayor seems to realize.

Here’s hoping he keeps it up.

It’ll make for a much more productive mayoral debate.