Cuomo, the legislature and transparency of motive

Now that the lightning-quick tax-code deal has fast-tracked its way through the Capitol, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo faces questions and comments from some quarters about opaqueness. Tom Precious of the Buffalo News has an early take on the matter here. As carried by "Capital Tonight," the governor offered this scramble in response:

The good government groups often raise the point of transparency. I remember being here over 20 years ago with my father, it was the same discussion. I think everybody agrees the more transparency the better. In this case, I think it’s probably hard for me to comprehend the concept that the millionaires tax is an issue that hasn’t had enough discussion. I don’t know that there is an issue that has received more attention, more discussion than the millionaires tax. Literally, I’ve been talking about it for two years. Everyone has an opinion, everyone has a opinion. If there is a person in the Legislature who is sitting in a seat and said they never thought of this millionaires tax, then that is a person who shouldn’t be serving in the Legislature.

All this is separate from the "read my lips" drumbeat that makes it the bottom line that Cuomo changed his tune, which he did -- and even further from the more extreme claims implying that preserving part of an existing tax surcharge on the very highest of New York incomes will somehow dislodge all residents and staff from Manhattan's Fifth Avenue, feed class warfare in the street and kill the jobs that would have trickled down if only the three men in a room had resisted the demands of the unwashed "establishment."

It's easy to see where a more sustained legislative review process would have kept these vexing arguments in play -- and makes clear the three-way motive for an Albany-style blitzkrieg. Motive may be the most transparent part of the deal.