As a tumultuous year limps to an end, state governors are planning to deliver more hits to our already battered pocketbooks. More taxes are coming our way. You may not recognize them because, transparency and honesty be damned, many of them will come disguised as fees, assessments, and whatever euphemisms can be pulled from a government thesaurus to obscure the truth. Donald Lambro of the Washington Times noted:

Governors want to levy higher taxes next year on clothes, soft drinks, gasoline, auto licenses and other items that likely will hit low- and middle-income families struggling to make ends meet in a deepening recession the hardest.

Officials say they are required by law to balance budgets and that tax increases are necessary as state governments face sharply declining tax revenues, but fiscal analysts say raising these taxes during an economic downturn will only worsen local economies and prolong the recession

* An "iTunes tax" of 4 percent on videos, music or pictures downloaded from the Internet.

* A 4 percent tax on taxi, limo and bus rides. That means a $10 cab ride would cost 40 cents more.

* A 4 percent entertainment tax on tickets to movies, concerts and sporting events. That would add nearly 50 cents to a $12 movie ticket or $1.80 to the cheapest $44.50 seat at a Knicks game.

* The tax on beer increases 24 cents per gallon, or more than double the current rate, which means about 30 cents a case.

* An 18 percent tax on nondiet soft drinks, which aims to reduce child obesity. A $1.50 can of Pepsi would then cost at least 25 cents more.

* A 4 percent tax on cable TV and satellite services, raising a $100 bill by $4.

* Hiking the cost of "personal" services - including haircuts, manicures, pedicures, massages and gym memberships - by 4 percent.

* A 4 percent sales tax on clothing and shoes under $500, except for two weeks out of the year.

* Elimination of the law that caps the state sales tax on gasoline at 8 cents per gallon.

* Boosting the average vehicle registration fee for drivers by $11, from $44 to $55. Fees for new or renewed licenses also would increase 25 percent, or increase from $50 to about $62 to renew a license over eight years.

In addition, all drivers would have to get new, "reflectorized" license plates at a fee of $25 each.

Under the plan, the gas tax would roughly double to 36 cents a gallon and taxpayers would be hit with 2.5% income-tax surcharge. These "fees" sound awfully like taxes. California already has one of the highest income tax burdens in the nation.

We're not going to agree to tax increases. Period. High taxes are what are killing this state."

California is already the most costly place in America to do business, according to the Milken Institute's business cost index. Its business costs in 2006 were 23% higher than the average for the rest of the states, and well above those of its neighboring states.

Worse, energy costs are already 35% higher than the national average. With California's costly new CO2 mandates about to kick in, the economy could well grind to a halt.

Such business mainstays as Intel, Exxel Outdoors, Toyota and Tesla have already left California. Intel is a particularly alarming example: The world leader in chip technology started in Silicon Valley but no longer makes anything in California.

Since 2001, according to the California Manufacturers and Technology Association, the state has lost 440,000 high-wage jobs. Today, the state's jobless rate of 8.4% is third-highest in the nation.

Even Hollywood feels the pinch. In 2003, 66% of Hollywood's feature films were made in-state; today, it's down to 31%. Increasingly, Hollywood is a state of mind -- not a place to do business.

Things are so bad that, just last week, 25 business groups wrote an open letter to the state's legislature begging it to think about the role businesses play in the economy.

If New Yorkers are now experiencing "the greatest economic and fiscal challenge of our lifetimes," as Paterson's budget presentation appropriately called it, it's hard to justify such items as:

* $45 million for the state Council on the Arts (twice the per-capita average for such agencies in other states).

* $78 million for the chronically troubled Statewide Wireless Network.

* $58 million for added park and open-space land acquisition.

* $46 million for stem-cell research (already heavily funded by private firms and the federal government).

* $65 million in tax credits for (mostly wealthy) film producers.

* $8 million for a scenic pedestrian walkway over the Hudson River.

LET'S admit it: New York is grappling with a fiscal crisis largely of its own making. The national recession and Wall Street meltdown magnify the problem, but New York has a $15 billion budget deficit not because we don't collect enough taxes, but because we spend too much.

To avoid being in this terrible situation again, we have to leverage this current crisis to achieve long-term reforms in government spending and fiscal policy.

Our No. 1 priority should be a cap on state spending -- an annual limit on the increase in state spending that would, in turn, drive many other badly needed reforms.

State and local spending in New York is now the second highest in the nation -- 47 percent above the national average. A spending cap would help bring this excess under control.

It's clear where much of this overspending is centered -- and that it doesn't actually buy us better government services.

For example, we have the highest per-pupil education spending in this country -- nearly $19,000 per student, 63 percent above the national average. Yet we're 33rd in the nation in eighth-grade math scores and not much better on other pupil-performance measures.

And New York's per-capita Medicaid spending is more than double the national average, according to Kaiser State Health Facts. Yet, despite this off-the-charts spending, our key health-care indicators are worse than the national averages.

On the other side of the ledger, our personal-income and real-estate taxes are the highest in the country. Business taxes are the second highest. The result is the worst tax climate in America, and an economy that was already tanking before the downturn.

In terms of personal-income growth from 1995 to 2005, New York ranked 42nd among the 50 states. Even with what seemed to be a booming city economy, our state was among the nine worst-performing economies in the entire country.

All this has been driving people away. Since 2000, New York has led the nation in the number of residents moving to other states, according to the Census. Each year we suffer a net loss of more than 200,000 New Yorkers - that is, we basically lose another Syracuse every 12 months.