PATAKI’S ROCKY ROAD

Gov. Pataki’s real legacy is begin ning to come into focus, and the gaping hole at Ground Zero is only going to be part of it.

And maybe only a small part.

A new report from the Empire Center for New York State Policy chillingly demonstrates that - fiscally speaking - Pataki is effectively the reincarnation of Nelson Rockefeller.

This year’s budget comes with a bloated 8.3 percent growth in its “state funds” portion - spending financed by state taxes, fees and other non-federal revenue.

Adjusted for inflation, that’s the largest year-to-year spending jump since Rockefeller’s 10 percent hike in 1973.

Not surprisingly, the governor blamed the Legislature.

Sure, Assembly Speaker Shelly Silver and Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno never met an increase they didn’t like.

But the governor sure as heck can’t avoid responsibility.

Yes, Pataki has vetoed several items in the budget - and, absent those vetoes, the budget would grow even faster, fully matching the 10 percent hike of Rocky’s last term.

But it’s a little late for Pataki to declare himself a “born again” fiscal hawk.

Indeed, the Legislature is just following the example that he has so vividly set.

The governor has put the pedal to the metal on health-care spending, specifically Medicaid - which has exploded because of Pataki-promoted programs, such as Family Health Plus.

This expansion was the cost taxpayers paid for Pataki getting the 2002 gubernatorial nod from Local 1199, the health-care-workers union.

No wonder the state spends nearly as much on Medicaid as Texas and California combined. (Another part of the mess: the possible $18 billion a year the state may be losing in fraud - a problem Pataki only “discovered” over the last year, though to no apparent good effect.)

Throw Bruno and Silver in the mix, plus the most dysfunctional legislature in the country and this is the New York is what we get.

A place where people want to be from, Very sad.