Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s overhaul of the state’s tax code is a big win for him, for lawmakers and even for those middle-class taxpayers in line for a pretty decent rate cut.

The governor is yet to the sign the bill after voting in the Assembly went into the wee hours of the morning.

But the process — the sausage making, if you will — is coming under some scrutiny this morning.

The Times’ Tom Kaplan has a pretty lengthy piece today that is a scathing assessment of how the governor rammed the economic package through the Legislature with nary a public meeting or comment save for two op/eds meant for newspapers in the state.

In his first in-person remarks — Cuomo held several long radio interviews before last night — to reporters on the tax code proposal, the governor said it the issue of taxing the wealthy was not a new one for Albany.

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 attnetion, 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.

This argument, that the taxing the wealthy debate is one that we heard all year, was given by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, too.

The speed did take many Albany observers, even veteran ones, by surprise. Remember: The Wall Street Journal piece that initially broke the news about the tax code dropped last Tuesday. Lawmakers only passed the package yesterday, which included a 33-page document released hours before the vote.

This isn’t the first time the year-old administration has been wrapped on the knuckles over the transparency issue. The Associated Press and Times Union earlier this year filed Freedom of Information requests for Cuomo’s plane usage and received heavily redacted records.

The administration later produced a new website called Citizens Connect, which includes public schedules of events, frequent Q and A sessions with agency chiefs and the governor’s daily schedules, though the daily schedules have not been updated since August.

Cuomo also indicated during the news conference in the Red Room that the package needed to be done now — right now — in order to begin shoring up the state’s economy and creating jobs. Cuomo spun the legislation not as a tax bill — though that’s what we in the press are all focusing on — but as a measure that’s meant to help stabilize the economy.

The governor also praised the “efficiency” of the process, which he said can help improve the Albany’s image for legislative and governmental gridlock, particularly in light of what’s happening on the federal level.

That efficiency, “in and of itself can build confidence in the state and that can in and of itself help the economy,” Cuomo said.

And frankly, the public, in the end, usually doesn’t care about how the sausage is made, just how the final product tastes.

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