AG Andrew Cuomo subtly upped the ante on Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, calling for Gov. David Paterson to put a property tax cap into a budget extender and force lawmakers to go on the record about where they stand on the issue.

“I’d like to see them put a property tax cap on the table,” the Democratic gubernatorial candidate told the Post’s Fred Dicker on Talk 1300 this morning.”

Asked by Dicker if the cap should be in an extender or a stand-alone bill, Cuomo replied:

“Well, under the governor’s device, it’s the same thing. The governor could say: I want the property tax cap passed. They’re going to say is – the they – well, we don’t want it. We don’t want it? Let’s put it in the extender and define who the ‘we’ is.”

“(Senate Minority Leader) Dean Skelos, are you for or against the property tax cap?…I want to get the individuals on line. And well the Assembly’s against it. Who in the Assembly?…Is Assemblyman Morelle for or against it? Is Assemblyman Hoyt for or against it? Is Assemblyman Cahill for or against it?”

“Forget the Assembly what does that mean the Assembly? When you go into vote it doesn’t say Assembly, it has a name. And that’s my point. The individual’s name and the individual’s position. That’s what this device is doing and that works. “

Interestingly, Dicker tried while Cuomo was speaking to goad him into saying something about Silver, noting repeatedly that the speaker doesn’t support the tax cap.

Cuomo avoided going there, instead sticking with the names of assembly members who are his supporters. He later said he wasn’t trying to put them on the spot, merely using them as examples of Democratic lawmakers.

“The names I mentioned are just names of assemblymen,” the AG said.

“But the point is every assemblyman, we should know where they stand. There’s an election. Inform your voters. What’s your position”

“”You know, when never comes up for a vote, it mean they never have to take a position. Convenient.

Cuomo included an across-the-board 2 percent tax cap in his “new New York Agenda,” released when he announced his candidacy for governor on May 22.

The proposal is more stringent than Paterson’s own plan, which focuses only on school taxes. Cuomo said he believes his cap is “probably the broadest proposal of any I’ve heard out there; it’s broader than the governor’s proposal, also the Republicans.”

The AG isn’t the first to call on Paterson to embed the tax cap in an extender bill. Sen. Craig Johnson, a Nassau County Democrat, floated the same idea last week, and it was immediately panned by Silver.

The speaker told me during a “Capital Tonight” interview that aired yesterday that he expects to work well with Cuomo if and when he’s elected even though the two don’t see eye-to-eye on a host of issues – including the tax cap.

Asked if he’s let the governor know he wants the tax cap put in an extender, Cuomo replied:

“In videos. In movies. In books. In posters. In postcards.”

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