ALBANY - If you think no one would oppose holding a line on property taxes in New York, you haven't looked in Albany.

A cap on property tax growth released this week and gleefully supported by tax policy experts as wise, if a couple of decades overdue, faces an uncertain future because of a few formidable critics.

Publicly, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver of Manhattan says his Democratic majority “shares the concern of the many New Yorkers who are struggling to pay rising property taxes.”

And the powerful New York State United Teachers union, one of Albany's biggest lobbyists and campaign contributors, acknowledges “the need for property tax relief.”

But there's a big “but.”

Silver explained that it's a complicated issue, and that any action must guarantee school children have the resources they need for a quality education.

Even Senate Republican leader Joseph Bruno's 300-word statement about the “crushing burden” of property taxes and the need for reform never said whether he's for or against the tax cap.

Meanwhile, NYSUT - one of the lawmakers' biggest benefactors - called setting the cap at 4 percent growth or 120 percent of inflation “an arbitrary cap that fails to take into consideration rising costs beyond the control of school districts.” Union President Richard Iannuzzi called a tax cap “a blunt instrument.”

Exactly.

“Enough is enough,” said Gov. David Paterson.

“Skyrocketing property taxes will no longer be an option,” he said. “It will force us to save our state.”

Talk to people in Utica, or Massena, or Buffalo or Long Island, he said, where people who are spending 15 to 20 percent of income on property taxes watch their kids leave for jobs in other states and the elderly try to cling to their family homes. “It's mind boggling,” he said.

“It is unsustainable,” said Tom Suozzi, the Nassau County executive who is chairman of Paterson's tax relief commission. “People can no longer take it in our state.”

Paterson cited Massachusetts' 2.5 percent tax cap, enacted in 1980. He said the Bay State went from among the five most taxed states, along with New York, to 33rd today, while New York is the most taxed.

Supporters also noted that Massachusetts student performance has improved in that time, a conclusion disputed by NYSUT and others who say the poorest communities suffer the most when deprived of revenue.

Paterson wants a tax cap passed this year, by the June 23 end of the legislative session, or he'll call the Legislature back later in the year. But he won't engage in any “horse-trading, hoodwinking, cajoling or threatening.” He doesn't plan to hold hostage other action the Legislature wants - including a pay raise. And Paterson said he won't use the fall elections as leverage to force a vote.

“This is not a game,” he said.

Well, it sort of is.

That's how much of the big stuff in Albany gets done. A decade ago when legislators got their last pay raise, they had to agree to Republican Gov. George Pataki's demand to create charter schools, an important part of his legacy.

That happened in the Dec. 19, 1998 post-election special session. The deal allowed lawmakers to vote for a pay raise they could collect two weeks later on Jan. 1 because law prohibits a sitting Legislature from raising its own pay.

The same situation, and perhaps a governor's legacy issue, could come together this fall.

Pataki also used the bully pulpit to force the Assembly to finally approve legislation in 1998 that eliminated parole for first-time violent offenders following the stabbing death of a nursing student in her apartment.

“If you had a vote in the Capitol, it would probably fail,” said John Faso, the Republican candidate in the 2006 race for governor, who called for a tax cap then. “But if you have a vote outside the Capitol it would pass overwhelmingly. Sooner or later the sentiment inside the Capitol will catch up with that outside the Capitol.”

“It's a political thermometer question,” said one longtime Albany observer. “Will it get hot enough for them to act?”