Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s plan to cap taxes is winning praise from an unlikely source: former GOP gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino.

The Buffalo businessman’s former campaign manager Michael Caputo is circulating an interview with an online outfit called Tea Party Works, that has Paladino credit his former foe for pushing the issue.

“Circumstances have changed. Our position is that we want to reel everything back and make this government much smaller than it is. The people in charge right now are not going to do that. If this is all we can get out of them right now, get it out of them! That’s what you have to do until you have the strength to take charge and implement your own program. We’re not there now,” Paladino said in the interview. “You have to learn how to win, you have to take positions that are winnable. Otherwise, people are going to become frustrated and they’re going to disappear – and the effort will die.”

Paladino’s compliments come as Gov. Andrew Cuomo plans to travel the state promoting his 2 percent cap on property taxes, which has passed the Republican-led Senate. An alternative bill is apparently in the works in the Democratic-controlled Assembly, which may include exemptions and an expiration date.

Cuomo spokesman Josh Vlasto on Thursday quickly shot down the idea of letting the cap expire after 3-5 years.

And the warm and fuzzies from Paladino to Cuomo are in stark contrast to the comments the Republican made on the 2011-12 budget, which he blasted.

“The only way your going to help our economy is creating jobs. Nothing in that document so far that I have seen creates jobs,” Paladino told WGRZ-TV.

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