Ο Γουίλιαμ Σαφάιρ, που πέθανε την Κυριακή, στα ογδόντα του σχεδόν, ήταν αρθρογράφος της Νιου Γιορκ Τάιμς, συντηρητικός με πολλούς εχθρούς και άνθρωπος της γλώσσας με πολλούς φίλους. Διατηρούσε επί 30 χρόνια στήλη για τη γλώσσα (On Language) στο εβδομαδιαίο περιοδικό της NYT. Από το Safire's Political Dictionary, που κυκλοφόρησε πέρυσι (εγώ έχω μείνει στην πρώτη του έκδοση, το The New Language of Politics, του 1968) αντιγράφω το λήμμα nobody shoots at Santa Claus. Μπορεί να είναι και επίκαιρο.
Santa Claus, nobody shoots at
Proverb about the political folly of attacking government entitlements.
Former Governor Alfred E. Smith, in a press conference in New York late in 1933, said, "No sane local official who has hung up an empty stocking over the municipal fireplace is going to shoot Santa Claus just before a hard Christmas." In 1936, when Smith, the embittered 1928 Democratic presidential candidate, was campaigning against Roosevelt, he shortened the point to a simple "nobody shoots at Santa Claus."
Barry Goldwater, campaigning for the Republican presidential nomination in 1964, told the Economic Club of New York: "It is my chore to ask you to consider the toughest proposition ever faced by believers in the free-enterprise system: the need for a frontal attack against Santa Claus— not the Santa Claus of the holiday season, of course, but the Santa Claus of the free lunch, the government handout, the Santa Claus of something-for-nothing and something-for-everyone."
Another man to take aim at the popular symbol of Christmas was Orville Freeman, campaigning for a fourth term as governor of Minnesota According to economist Walter Heller, Freeman went around the state telling people frankly that the services they wanted could only be paid for with higher taxes—that, in his phrase, "There ain’t no Santa Claus." He lost.
A synonym for Santa Claus is tooth fairy, after the practice of telling a child that if a recently extracted tooth is placed under the pillow at night a fairy will come and replace the lost tooth with a coin. Tooth fairy, meaning "a story told to gullible children,'' carries the same connotation of suspended reality as the cheerful ho-ho figure with the welcoming lap, though Santa retains an exclusive franchise for government largesse.
USC economics professor Arthur B. Laffer, who provided the intellectual underpinning for the tax revolt in California in 1978 and subsequently was a leading advocate of supply-side economics, wrote in the July 1978 ΑΕΙ Economist: "In the absence of the 'tooth fairy' the resources spent by the government are the total tax burden on the economy's productive sector."
In the don't-you-believe-it lexicon, baloney is the harshest denunciation; pie in the sky is severe, but fondly archaic; free lunch is usually limited to economic affairs; tooth fairy requires the most childlike belief; Santa Claus and Uncle Sugar are most closely associated with government benefits. Not too far afield is a Goldilocks economy—"not too hot, not too cold, but just right," as in perfect porridge.
Proverb about the political folly of attacking government entitlements.
Former Governor Alfred E. Smith, in a press conference in New York late in 1933, said, "No sane local official who has hung up an empty stocking over the municipal fireplace is going to shoot Santa Claus just before a hard Christmas." In 1936, when Smith, the embittered 1928 Democratic presidential candidate, was campaigning against Roosevelt, he shortened the point to a simple "nobody shoots at Santa Claus."
Barry Goldwater, campaigning for the Republican presidential nomination in 1964, told the Economic Club of New York: "It is my chore to ask you to consider the toughest proposition ever faced by believers in the free-enterprise system: the need for a frontal attack against Santa Claus— not the Santa Claus of the holiday season, of course, but the Santa Claus of the free lunch, the government handout, the Santa Claus of something-for-nothing and something-for-everyone."
Another man to take aim at the popular symbol of Christmas was Orville Freeman, campaigning for a fourth term as governor of Minnesota According to economist Walter Heller, Freeman went around the state telling people frankly that the services they wanted could only be paid for with higher taxes—that, in his phrase, "There ain’t no Santa Claus." He lost.
A synonym for Santa Claus is tooth fairy, after the practice of telling a child that if a recently extracted tooth is placed under the pillow at night a fairy will come and replace the lost tooth with a coin. Tooth fairy, meaning "a story told to gullible children,'' carries the same connotation of suspended reality as the cheerful ho-ho figure with the welcoming lap, though Santa retains an exclusive franchise for government largesse.
USC economics professor Arthur B. Laffer, who provided the intellectual underpinning for the tax revolt in California in 1978 and subsequently was a leading advocate of supply-side economics, wrote in the July 1978 ΑΕΙ Economist: "In the absence of the 'tooth fairy' the resources spent by the government are the total tax burden on the economy's productive sector."
In the don't-you-believe-it lexicon, baloney is the harshest denunciation; pie in the sky is severe, but fondly archaic; free lunch is usually limited to economic affairs; tooth fairy requires the most childlike belief; Santa Claus and Uncle Sugar are most closely associated with government benefits. Not too far afield is a Goldilocks economy—"not too hot, not too cold, but just right," as in perfect porridge.
