Opinion

How about it, Gov. Cuomo?

Gov. Cuomo’s offices professes to be “surprised” Comptroller Tom DiNapoli has opted out of his own pet project — public financing of campaigns — on the grounds that the plan drafted as part of the budget is a “poor excuse to avoid the real reforms New Yorkers deserve.”

Perhaps, as Cuomo spokesman Matt Wing suggests, “he just doesn’t want to do public financing.”

Sometimes the governor and his team can be a little too cute for their own good, and this is a perfect example.

We’ve long been dubious of claims that taking statewide New York City’s six-for-one matching system using public dollars is a cure for corruption. But if Cuomo is as serious about public financing as he claims to be, instead of trying to impose a pilot program on a fellow Democrat he’s been sparring with, he should be stepping forward to volunteer himself.

But there’s the rub. Because if the governor agreed to play by the rules of public finance, he would have to refund roughly half of the $33 million war chest he has ­accumulated.

He’s not the only one. Almost all incumbents have this huge advantage. DiNapoli, for example, would have been forced to give back $1.5 million, fully 73 percent of his campaign cash on hand. Which helps explain why incumbents are so enthusiastic about public financing — for everyone else.

There’s still time. The governor remains comfortably ahead in his race for re-election, and he’d still have millions more than his likely rival, Republican Rob Astorino. But instead of stepping forward to take DiNapoli’s place on principle, he’s making clear the real Cuomo on public financing of campaigns: Do as I say, not as I do.

Question is, why should New Yorkers take the governor’s pieties about public financing seriously when he clearly doesn’t himself?