A New York Legislature that now cannot balance a budget to save its life is astoundingly

considering a ream of bills that would make it that much harder to balance state budgets in

the future.

If it passes any of them, it will be up to Gov. David A. Paterson to show a little more of

the good sense he often has demonstrated and veto them one by one. Otherwise, it will only add

to the number of times that future legislators — and taxpayers — will shake their

heads and ask of their forebears, "What were they thinking?"

Known in Albany as "benefit sweeteners," the 24 different proposals now before members of

the Assembly and the Senate would increase the health and pension benefits offered to various

strata of state and local government employees.

Individually, the bills would do such things as offer new state-paid pension benefits to

employees who do not now have them, allow employees to collect full pensions with fewer years

of service, boost the size of death benefits paid to the survivors of state employees and

presume that all kinds of ailments, from heart disease to staph infections, were job-related

disabilities.

Collectively, they betray a giant lack of understanding on the part of their sponsors that,

however much state employees might deserve to be well compensated for their service, the

taxpayers simply cannot bear any greater burden in this area.

Not all of the bills have a price tag attached. Of those that do, first-year costs

associated with paying out the additional benefits are estimated to run between $1 million and

more than $5 million. And those are costs that will only grow over time.

The cost of state employees, current and retired, is a major share of the state's

out-of-balance budget. To try to get a handle on those costs, Paterson and the Legislature

have taken such steps as instituting new tiers of benefits, meaning that employees hired in

the future will not earn as much, or pay in as little, in the form of employee and retiree

benefits.

That should be a way to help ease the state's structural debt without breaking any promises

to current and past employees. But by floating so many different ideas to undermine that

philosophy, lawmakers who support the sweeteners are doing nothing so much as improving the

chances that more employees will be laid off, and more retirees will see their benefits

curtailed, as the state's deteriorating fiscal condition leaves officials with no other

choice.

Sucking up to the powerful state employee and other unions in a way that only sabotages

union members' long-term security — and increases the burden on taxpayers of all walks

of life — is no way to run a state. If the Legislature won't drop these ideas, the

governor must be ready to block them.