Gov. Paterson today promised that his 2010-11 Executive Budget, due out next week, would cut spending so much that New Yorkers would be in line for a billion-dollar property-tax rebate the year after. His mechanism: a property-tax “circuit breaker,” combined with a state spending cap, that would automatically send out rebate checks pegged to a taxpayer’s household income whenever Albany runs a surplus.

Sound nice? Well, as the Empire Center’s EJ McMahon argued when Paterson first floated the idea, it’s probably too good to be true. Problem is, he says, the rebate would only subsidize further property-tax hikes — and further government growth — on the local level, while hiding its cost from local taxpayers.