The passage of New York’s big, complicated state budget — every penny of the $237 billion the government plans to spend on your behalf over the next 12 months — is a portrait of power: who’s got the juice, who’s on the rise, and who got caught bluffing with a weak hand.

Governor Hochul clearly came out a winner, announcing victory and leaving town several days before the Legislature finished the budget. “This is a big deal — a very big deal. Everything that got done — the policy that we announced that I wanted to get done — my priorities in January are all in this budget,” she told me, holding up a big framed checklist of policies that resembled the menu in a 24-hour diner.

It seemed a little corny, but Hochul left no doubt that we are all playing by her rules now. And the No. 1 rule seems to be that you do not show weakness around this governor. In deal after deal, upon recognizing an adversary’s political problem, Hochul smiled — and drove one hard bargain after another.

Take housing. After two frustrating years of failing to get the Legislature to pass new tax credits that would give developers an incentive to build apartment complexes, Hochul, taking advantage of lawmakers’ desire to get out of Albany and back into their home districts to campaign for reelection, struck a complicated deal that tilts unmistakably in the direction of the real-estate industry, which has donated........

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