No sooner did our editorial about Senator Schumer’s favorite metaphor, “Seeing Daggers,” hit the wires than the World Wide Web erupted with other examples. The eight daggers we mentioned yesterday involved the proposal of the Mack-Breaux commission to eliminate the federal tax deduction for state and local taxes, a plan to allow flexible work schedules, a plan to require Wall Street firms to have backup sites outside the New York region, high gas prices, unilateral statehood by the Palestinian Arabs, hate crimes, school vouchers, and cuts to federal student aid. Mr. Schumer called them, respectively, “a dagger to the heart of the people of New York,” a “dagger to the heart of the middle class,” a “dagger pointed at the heart of New York,” a “dagger at the heart of our economy,” “a dagger through the heart of the peace process,” “a dagger in the heart of what America is all about,” “daggers that plunge into the heart of what is the American way,” and a “dagger to New York’s college students.”

It turns out, we learn from a number of readers including the inestimable James Taranto of OpinionJournal.com, that Mr. Schumer also said, on the NewsHour With Jim Lehrer, that the “nuclear option” considered by Republicans to end the Democratic filibuster of judicial nominees would have been “a dagger really right at the heart of what this republic is all about.” In respect of campaign finance regulations, the senator said, on the Senate floor on June 28, 2000, “To have no disclosure, let alone no limits, on these kinds of activities puts a dagger in the heart of democracy.” He called predatory lending “a dagger in the heart, not only of that family, but to all of us who believe in the American dream for everybody” (House Banking Committee, May 24, 2000). And, according to one blog, he also took the metaphor out of its scabbard earlier this year for use in responding to some remarks by Karl Rove about liberal reaction to September 11, 2001. He called the comments “a dagger to the heart of what America is all about.”

With Senator Schumer’s heart aflutter as if it were about to be filleted by a dagger every time some Republican gets out of bed in the morning, it’s hard to remember there are real concerns, including in respect of the impact of tax reform on New York. While, under the Mack-Breaux commission’s proposals, the home mortgage deduction will be scaled up for New York’s above-average housing costs, no such adjustment will be made for the city’s above-average taxes or above-average health care costs. So New York businesses and taxpayers could feel pain if the proposals become law, and New York’s already significant competitive disadvantages in attracting and creating jobs could be accentuated. All the more reason to move quickly to decrease the city’s health care and housing costs and lower taxes by unleashing the power of pro-growth, free enterprise policies. To fail to do so would be – how shall we put it? – a dagger at the heart of our city and state.