It looks like the Democrats are trying to lay an ambush for Mayor Bloomberg over the question of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal security grants. Congressman Anthony Weiner, the Democrat who is maneuvering for a run for mayor, is hoping to get other members of the New York delegation in Washington to join him in endorsing a whole list of demands for homeland funding security “reform.” One of them would be a guarantee that the city would get 8.5% of federal grants for homeland security. That would total $236 million in 2005.The idea seems to be to establish a list that exceeds what the Republicans are likely to accept. Then the list would be used as a standard against which any deal Mr. Bloomberg achieves will be judged, with the mayor coming up short and Mr. Weiner positioning himself to attack the mayor on the issue as the election nears next year.

The way for the mayor to handle this is to confront the Democrats on their ideology of dealing with the city’s problems through federal subsidies and handouts, rather than through economic growth. Not that Mr. Bloomberg hasn’t made progress. He has been in talks with the chairman of the House Select Homeland Security Committee, Rep. Christopher Cox of California, who is backing New York’s key request that money be assigned on the basis of terrorist threat. But even if the mayor were successful in winning all the subsidies the Democrats want, they wouldn’t do as much for the recovery of the city as a boom in economic growth of the kind that can only be triggered by a reduction in the tax burden on New York City residents, who, recall, face the highest tax burden of any Americans; by deregulation of city business; and by an end to restrictions on business and development.

In a few weeks the federal election will be behind us and the mayor will begin his re-election year. This is a time for him to reframe the debate back toward the principles that originally got him elected – a time to fight against excessive government spending and regulation, the excessive lawsuits that are constantly filed against the city, and for tax cuts and education reform.

The mayor has had a rocky but, at bottom, encouraging start on a school reform quest that will need every bit of two mayoral terms. Giving the chancellor, Joel Klein, a mandate to finish what he’s started is one of the big pluses that would come with the re-election of the mayor. The worst thing Mr. Bloomberg could do would be to get bogged down in a quarrel with the Democrats over how much the rest of America should subsidize New York after the attacks of September 11 that were aimed at all of us.