Washington is in constant tumult these days, as is London, where the battle over Brexit rages. By comparison, Albany is serene — and therein lies real danger.

Over the last week, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the Legislature picked the pockets of city and state taxpayers with a spending plan that takes and takes, then takes some more.

They did it quietly, like assassins, with only peeps of protest. Disagreements over which taxes to raise were settled by raising them all. Such is life in a one-party town.

As a result, New York is taking a giant leap toward the promised land of democratic socialism. The cost of living here already is soaring and Albany responded by injecting a huge dose of high-octane fuel. Expect a crash landing.

The pain comes in the form of new, renewed or hiked levies on Manhattan-bound motorists, real estate, income, pharmaceuticals, paper bags and rental cars. And that’s just for starters.

The pols also put in motion a plan to spend $100 million for public financing of their campaigns, then celebrated by giving themselves huge pay hikes.

Hooray for us!

The grab-fest is the poisoned fruit of last November’s election. Democrats trounced Republicans up and down the ballot and, most important, turned the state Senate solid blue.

While it’s true that the GOP Senate was a near-constant disappointment in that it was concerned mostly with survival and offered few principled alternatives, its absence already is painful. With no check on their impulse and no balance in their thinking, Cuomo & Co. unleashed their fantasies.

Despite claims to the contrary, they soaked the poor and the middle class as well as the rich. One way or another, every New Yorker, from Buffalo to Brooklyn, will pay the price of their folly.

Most will pay more in dollars; others will pay in lost opportunities. How do you calculate the cost of jobs never created because entrepreneurs gave up on their dreams?

And because we live in a perfect state where there are no errors, waste or even inefficiencies, not a single program, it seems, was eliminated or trimmed.

There were no serious reforms in the MTA, nor does the congestion pricing scam promise to relieve congestion. If the city wanted to do that, it could simply remove the impediments it created and enforce traffic laws.

This orgy of taxing and spending was carried out the old-fashioned way — in secret meetings with three leaders in a room, where all the deals carving up $175.5 billion were made. The outcome, a 4 percent increase over the last fiscal year, was too important to be decided in public hearings and debates, lest honest democratic representation break out and spoil the unity.

It is no consolation that a handful of new lefty legislators voted no. Their only gripe is that they wanted more taxes and more spending.

Cuomo, of course, is the circus master, and the budget process confirms that he has reinvented himself yet again. Planting himself in the center-left in his first term, he lurched left in his second and now moves even further onto the left wing to start his third.

It is no coincidence that his first term was better than his second, and the third is shaping up as a calamity.

In his early years, Cuomo publicly demonized Republicans while privately using their hold on the state Senate as a shield against the spendthrift ways of Assembly Democrats. When Republicans began dying off, he hid behind the breakaway Dems.

But with the rise of the radical left, coupled with his own White House ambitions, Cuomo is now embracing most of the agenda he warred against. As such, he owns the slow-motion disaster undermining New York’s economy.

The bleeding of wealth, represented by upper-income residents fleeing to lower-tax states and being replaced by lower-income migrants, is certain to accelerate. Anyone even thinking of leaving will find no reason to stay in the new budget.

Earlier hikes of the minimum wage to $15 in the city are taking a toll on restaurant jobs, which have fallen for the first time in two decades, according to a trade group’s survey. Bankrate reports that the cost of living in Nashville, Tenn., where AllianceBernstein is moving 1,050 financial jobs, is 58 percent cheaper than in Manhattan.

The exodus is showing up in falling receipts from the personal income tax, so it’s not as if Cuomo hasn’t been warned that trouble lies ahead. But his party’s politics are so perverse these days that ruinous policies are hailed as proof of commitment to the progressive cause.

As for 2020, Cuomo first vowed he would serve a full third term as governor and not run for president, then hedged, suggesting he might run if Joe Biden didn’t.

Now that Biden is getting slaughtered by the left for being too hands-on creepy with women, my guess is that he will conclude the race is slipping away before it starts. A decision not to run would give Cuomo the opening to jump in.

If so, he will point to his handiwork in New York as a model for the nation. Heaven help America.

‘Dem’-ented Trump foes

The surge in migrants on our southern border is so extreme that even the New York Times is conceding the fact.

A revealing story Tuesday from inside Mexico puts much of the blame on the promises of that country’s new president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who took office pledging to welcome Central American migrants.

He got more than he bargained for and, with President Trump trying to make entry into the US more difficult, thousands are living as squatters in Mexican border towns.

Trump, meanwhile, is threatening to close the border if Mexico doesn’t do more to stem the tide. Other presidents have closed the border before, and if nothing else works, Trump will have little choice but to do the same.

Unfortunately, Democrats are continuing their choice to point fingers without lifting a hand to help. Their refusal to admit a crisis even exists shows they would rather see vast human suffering on both sides of the border and American towns overrun with unwanted migrants than work with Trump for a solution.

This is Trump Derangement Syndrome in action. It infects its victims with a greater desire to hurt the president than to help the country. Shame on them.

Penalty for Schifftiness

Reader Karen Korakis, noting the many falsehoods spread by Rep. Adam Schiff on the matter of collusion, has a reasonable question. She asks: “If you get indicted for lying to Congress, what do you get if Congress lies to you?”

Kardash & burn

Finally, a headline with good news: “Kardashians Return with Lowest Premiere Ratings Ever.”

There is hope.