Politics on the Hudson

So maybe Gov. Eliot Spitzer and the health-care lobby have agreed to tone down the rhetoric but that apparently doesn’t apply to his battle with the Republican-run Senate.

At a news conference this afternoon, the governor called the Senate’s budget package “ruinous’’ and a “charade’’ and said that—with less than three weeks to go before the April 1 start of the fiscal year—“it’s time for the state Senate to get serious.’’

He took issue with one particular fiscal feat the Republicans deployed: tripling the proposed property-tax rebate but not counting that as part of state spending. By doing so, the Republicans claimed that their budget added more than $1 billion to Spitzer’s original budget proposal yet still totaled the same amount, $120.6 billion.

“To say it’s Enron accounting would be unfair to Enron,’’ Spitzer said. “There’s no way their numbers can withstand even minimal scrutiny.’‘