From the “In case you missed it” files…

Do you long for the halcyon days of the George Pataki administration?  Rick Lazio does.  The ethics, transparency, good government, limited spending, low taxes, and private sector job growth.  All hallmarks of the successful Pataki Administration, right?  So says Mr. Lazio, “I’m nostalgic for the Patkai years…it’s when New Yorkers were proud to be New Yorkers.”

Maybe it’s just me but I remember an entirely different history.  I remember the late budgets, power consolidation, three men in a room, incompetent and lazy leadership, tax cuts combined with massive spending increases, corruption, spiraling debt.

Deroy Murdoch, no liberal he, remembers the Pataki administration thusly:

The Empire State’s drowsy Republican governor drifts off January 1 after 12 years in office. He departs about 11 years too late. Pataki is less than just a politician of breathtaking mediocrity; his lack of competence, charisma, and character composes a sickening trifecta that actually has led some local Republicans to look with hope at Governor-elect Elliot Spitzer, a busybody liberal Democrat.

As Pataki’s reign of error ends, New York is No. 50 in the Tax Foundation’s State Business Tax Climate Index. It also has America’s 50th best individual state-tax burden, and is the 47th-best place to pay unemployment insurance.

Under Pataki, the state budget has soared 79.5 percent — from $63.3 billion in 1994 to $113.6 billion in 2006. Pataki’s 12-year-average annual spending rate is 4.9 percent.

“Pataki’s budgets grew by almost twice as much as inflation,” says Cato Institute fiscal analyst Stephen Slivinski. In Pataki’s third term, this spending pace zoomed to 8.3 percent.

Pataki has borrowed like a pawnshop patron. He has deepened state-funded debt by 61.3 percent — from $31 billion in 1994 to $50 billion today.

Yeah, I guess those were the days, eh Rick?