starve the beast
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English
Etymology
According to Bruce Bartlett, the second sense was first used by an anonymous Reagan staffer in “We didn’t starve the beast. It’s still eating quite well—by feeding off future generations.”[1]
Verb
starve the beast (third-person singular simple present starves the beast, present participle starving the beast, simple past and past participle starved the beast)
- (US) To progressively weaken or destroy a dangerous or powerful entity through attrition.
- (US politics) To deprive the federal government of revenue by cutting taxes in an effort to force it to limit spending.
- 2010 February 22, Catherine Rampell, “A New Social Contract, but Which One?”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2021-10-16:
- Whatever the mechanism, attempts to starve the beast through revenue shortages somehow seem to make the beast all the more voracious.
References
- ^ Bruce Bartlett (2007) ““Starve the Beast”: Origins and Development of a Budgetary Metaphor”, in The Independent Review, volume 12, number 1, archived from the original on 2023-06-25, page 5
- “starve the beast” under “starve, v.”, in OED Online
, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.
- “starve the beast” under “starve, v.”, in OED Online
Further reading
Starve the beast on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
