George Will: People Will Look Back On Fiscal Cliff Deal As Point When Liberalism Started Its Decline

George Will had an interesting take on the fiscal cliff agreement reached by Congress and the White House last week.

Appearing on ABC’s This Week, Will said, “I think people will look back on this deal as where liberalism passed an apogee and went into decline” (video follows with transcript and commentary):

GEORGE STEPHANOULOS, HOST: And you say the deal -- and this is kind of a contrarian view -- was actually a triumph.

GEORGE WILL: In this sense, I think people will look back on this deal as where liberalism passed an apogee and went into decline for the following reason. In 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 7 did. And they did it to make for only 10 years, they were to expire.

Under this deal, 172 House Democrats voted to make the Bush rates permanent for all but 0.5 percent of American taxpayers. What that means is, is that they can no longer tax the middle class. And we have here an endangered species...

(CROSSTALK)

ROBERT REICH: He's pointing to me. I don't know why.

WILL: I'll tell you why. There are only about three liberals in the country -- and you're one -- who aren't actively hostile to arithmetic. And therefore, you know that you cannot fund a state that 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.

Fascinating stuff that flies in the face of what most conservatives are thinking thereby deserving of serious consideration especially as liberal media members and the party they're aligned with joined in the support of the dreaded Bush tax cuts.

It truly is a watershed moment when the left almost universally fights for tax cuts they vehemently opposed when originally enacted while vilifying them for the next ten years.

You have to also love Will’s line to former Clinton labor secretary Robert Reich.

“There are only about three liberals in the country -- and you’re one -- who aren’t actively hostile to arithmetic.”

NewsBusters readers know that I’ve been ridiculing the arithmetic acumen of liberals for years.

Nice to have Will on my side!