“People will look back on this [as a] deal where liberalism passed an effigy and went into decline”
“I think people will look back on this [as a] deal where liberalism passed an effigy and went into decline for the following reason: The Bush tax rates were passed in two tranches, 2001 and 2003. In 2001, only 28 Democratic members of the House voted for them. In 2003, only seven did. And they did it for only 10 years they were to expire. Under this deal, 172 House Democrats voted to make Bush rates permanent for all but one half of 1 percent of American taxpayers. What that means is that they can no longer tax the middle class.”
Will, who also made the fiscal cliff argument in a Washington Post op-ed last week, then took aim at co-panelist Robert Reich, the former secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton, calling him “an endangered species.”…
“There are only three liberals in the country, and you’re one, who are actively hostile to arithmetic and therefore, you know ,you cannot fund a state the liberals want, the entitlement state without taxing the middle class at least. And now you’ve given up that with the locking in as permanent law the Bush tax rates — that’s off the table.”
Blowback
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As commenters on the DC are pointing out, instead of “effigy,” the proper word is “apogee.”
Sekhmet on January 7, 2013 at 9:23 AM
Passed an effigy of what? Would it be painful?
ElectricPhase on January 7, 2013 at 9:26 AM
You forgot one thing George. Dem’s don’t mind being hypocrites. They’re pretend their vote never happened and the press will have their backs and never call them out on it.
WisRich on January 7, 2013 at 9:26 AM
One tiny little problem there. We’re dealing with liberals who are as you say “actively hostile to arithmetic”. They seem to have no qualms about running up trillion dollar deficits on an annual basis and printing trillions more to cover at least some of that difference. Yes at some point(and it’s fast approaching), the realities of math and economics will catch up with us and spending will necessarily have to be cut(and taxes on the middle and lower class will almost certainly be required to go up, possibly by astronomical amounts). But it appears that our President and Congressional leaders are more than happy to do nothing about this inevitable crisis until it’s officially upon us.
Doughboy on January 7, 2013 at 9:27 AM
“Arithmetic….is that like math or something?”
-average lib
Bishop on January 7, 2013 at 9:31 AM
Even “apogee” doesn’t work very as the object of being “passed”.
Other words would work better as being passed, and some are better descriptions of the thing that was passed. Two that come to mind are “squeak-fart” and “huge stinking turd”. I’m going with the latter.
connertown on January 7, 2013 at 9:31 AM
Yeah.
George Will isn’t as smart as he thinks he is. Memorizing the dictionary isn’t useful when you don’t memorize the definitions.
rbj on January 7, 2013 at 9:33 AM
The good news is that QE works like a regressive tax on the bottom feeder morons that reelected this jerk. Maybe between that and the progressive income tax we’ll end up somewhere near a flat tax.
The Count on January 7, 2013 at 9:38 AM
The bottom feeders get automatic cost of living increases as it happens. It is the middle workers who get screwed.
astonerii on January 7, 2013 at 9:44 AM
Have you ever seen a female Keebler Elf? of course they’re endangered…
These are the people that proudly gave us a Presidential Candidate who “voted for it before he voted against it.” If they had awareness of history they might not be ignoring the entire 20th century when Marxism failed, piling up corpses and poverty as it did so…
trubble on January 7, 2013 at 9:45 AM
The bad news is I’m not a bottom feeder and QE taxes me the same as the leeches that get cost-of-living increases on their welfare checks.
gryphon202 on January 7, 2013 at 9:49 AM
The original Daily Caller article was corrected, without mention. Of course, every place that cited it is still wrong! If only the internet could promulgate such corrections … but then we wouldn’t see the liberal sites try to scrub stupid stuff they write.
Paul-Cincy on January 7, 2013 at 9:51 AM
“The GOP needs to take the party back from these anti-government types and their rigid position that we adhere to this so-called math. We will never reach compromise as long as these ideologues insist that two plus two always has to equal four” – Nancy Pelosi
RadClown on January 7, 2013 at 10:11 AM
I get Will’s point but I think he’s a bit naive to think they wont tax the middle class. They just wont do it directly. Carbon tax, VAT, whatever they can think of to tax industry which will pass along to the consumer. It will be even more regressive, but they’ll probably get away with it since you know, they’re the party who *cares*
Dash on January 7, 2013 at 10:17 AM
When one speaks and writes over and over, there are bound to be moments where people speak or write improperly. Good try with the GOTCHA moment though.
blatantblue on January 7, 2013 at 10:20 AM
It’s not that they feel they cannot tax the middle class. It’s that they no longer feel any constraints on deficit spending. There is no downside to them electorally to bankrupt the Treasury.
Ted Torgerson on January 7, 2013 at 10:21 AM
He said “apogee”, it was mistranscribed as “effigy”. Whatever Will’s failings, confusing “apogee” and “effigy” isn’t one of them.
Paul-Cincy on January 7, 2013 at 10:27 AM
Exactly. Liberals finally figured out that there is no constituency against endless borrowing and they can have all the spending they want without raising taxes on anyone. Wheeeeee!!!
rockmom on January 7, 2013 at 10:45 AM
arithmetic is RACIST! /s
cicerone on January 7, 2013 at 10:55 AM
What he really said was effin’ G, wherein “G” stands for gall stone.
John the Libertarian on January 7, 2013 at 11:03 AM
If you watch Will’s hand motion as he says “apogee,” it’s clearly describing the peak of an arc. So he certainly meant to say, “apogee,” and it was simply transcribed wrongly.
I’m not a huge fan of Will, but he knows his language too well to make such an obvious mistake.
There Goes The Neighborhood on January 7, 2013 at 1:34 PM