Faso: DC has been showing its Albany side

Former minority leader of the State Assembly and Republican candidate for governor in 2006, Faso is a partner in the law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips.

It's remarkable how similar the public reaction to the most recent budget flap in Washington was to past state budget delays in Albany. Headlines screamed, pundits pontificated and the public was outraged. The term "dysfunctional" was used frequently. It was as if our state Capitol had been moved to Washington.

There were other similarities, too. Albany has had years of "three men in a room" negotiations, which provide virtually no information about what takes place behind closed doors. In D.C., it was the same: Congressional leaders huddling privately with the president and vice president. Some senators, meeting on a bipartisan basis for months, were called the "Gang of Six." The common denominator was that there was very little information provided to the media and public as to the substance of the debate.

This information gap was made worse in D.C. by the refusal of Senate Democrats to lay their cards on the table. It's shocking that the Senate hasn't passed its own budget in more than two years. We all remember the GOP House budget proposal, prepared by Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. It's been attacked -- usually misleadingly -- but at least the House Republicans made and passed a budget plan. Not so the Senate Democrats.

It sure seemed like Albany.

Most media coverage involved each side taking poll-tested pot shots at the other, or it focused on what might happen if default occurred. Democrats wanted to raise taxes on the "wealthy" and accused the other side of wanting to "end Medicare and Social Security." Republicans repeatedly pointed to the exploding national debt, but often found these concepts difficult to translate into easily understood sound bites for the folks back home.

Ultimately, neither side wanted to fully show its hand, preferring to avoid controversy with its political base, which might be upset at any notion of compromise.

Ultimately, the deal was passed on a bipartisan basis -- just like some of the recent contentious Albany budget deals. And the public has expressed its strong disapproval of Congress -- just like its attitude toward Albany pols. President Barack Obama is sinking to new lows in his approval rating.

The common view is that reasonable adults could have come to compromise sooner. But the two sides in Congress hold widely divergent positions on how to deal with the nation's economic woes. That disagreement mirrors the deeply divided nation.

One side believes that we need more government involvement, the other thinks we already have too much centralized control over the economy. One side argues for higher taxes, but only on the "wealthy"; the other believes that tax increases now on anyone will damage our prospects. One side believes that entitlement programs must be continued with little or no change; the other believes that entitlements need fundamental reform to preserve their existence. These same debates are played out in New York during each budget cycle.

The recent debt limit process was messy and disruptive on many levels, but this is the system the Founders gave us when they created separate branches of government, each able to check and balance the other. It's worth remembering that throughout our history, certain issues have taken decades to resolve -- think abolition, women's suffrage and the temperance movement.

Big issues -- and the current argument about debt and the role of government qualifies as a big one -- often get fought out over generations. We have every right to be impatient with our representatives, be they in Washington or Albany, over their failure to resolve the big issues quickly. But, the genius of the American system is that each side gets its say and has the ability to try to bring about change, working through the cumbersome and nettlesome process given us by the Founders.

So, let the debate continue.