As they prepare to give up majority status, the state Senate Republicans are clearly putting politics ahead of problem solving.

After Democratic Gov. David Paterson unveiled his proposed state deficit reduction plan last week, the GOP Senate caucus, which retains control in that chamber until the new year, suddenly demanded to see Paterson's budget proposal for the next 18 months.

They also made it clear they planned to take no action at the special session of the Legislature called by the governor for Tuesday.

“Before the Legislature acts, we need to see what the governor is proposing for next year,” Senate Republican Leader Dean Skelos said. “These important decisions about New York's future cannot be made in a vacuum.”

If that's how Skelos and his followers feel, then why didn't they make this request weeks ago when Paterson first outlined his plan for tackling the state's budget deficit crisis? That's when Paterson called for the Nov. 18 special session. That's when he asked the Senate and Assembly to submit their own deficit reduction proposals by Friday, Nov. 7 (something both houses failed to do). That's when he pledged to deliver his 2009-2010 budget proposal in December, a full month ahead of the deadline for doing so under state law.

But state legislators were too busy running campaigns at the time to be worried about fulfilling the duties of their actual jobs. So they waited until less than a week before the special session to start working on the problem.

Although what the Senate is doing cannot be described as working on the problem.

At this point, we wonder whether there's any benefit to even holding Tuesday's special session. It seems as if it will be nothing more than an exercise in political posturing at taxpayer expense.