The MTA yesterday proposed major service cuts. Today, Gov. Paterson begins freezing $750 million in state aid to localities.

In other words, the budget chickens are preparing to roost.

But, hey: It’s a recession — and public-sector employees expect taxpayers to make sacrifices on their behalf.

Paring school music programs — not to mention entire bus and subway lines — is the price New Yorkers must pay to support a public-sector wage-and-benefit structure that private-sector wage-slaves can only dream about.

Transit employees will get 11.3 percent raises; straphangers get fewer trains and buses. Indeed, at yesterday’s MTA finance committee board meeting, officials proposed:

* Eliminating the W and Z subway lines and several bus routes.

* Reducing the number of trains running on weekends, late nights and mid-day.

* Scaling back Access-a-Ride services for the disabled and eliminating free transit rides for students.

Meanwhile, Paterson’s plan calls for withholding some $667 million in aid to local school districts — money needed to fund very-generous-for-a-recession raises for teachers all across New York. (Recently negotiated contracts on Long Island, for example, provide for raises of 3 percent and more.)

Sure, New Yorkers are going to have to live with fewer vital public services.

But the public unions will be happy.

First things first.