Starve the Beast

Starve the Beast is an American euphemism for Don't pay for Government. This euphemism is commonly used by Conservatives and the Republican Party. Conservatives and the Republican Party oppose the policies of the New Deal, progressive taxation, public property, and a Welfare State, which they refer to as Big Government. Since most of these policies and programs are very popular, they have developed euphemisms for their preferred policies. Since they can't come right out and support cutting popular programs like Social Security or Medicare or farm subsidies or the Land Bank, Consumer Protection, Environmental Protection, Financial Regulation, Business Regulation, etc. Conservatives and Republicans favor lowering taxes (especially for themselves and their country club friends) and know that eventually the debts run up by unfunded programs will force those programs to be either reformed or abandoned. So, Starve the Beast is Conservative code for cut the taxes that fund Government, and Republican policy is to run huge deficits so that eventually the New Deal will fail. Starve the Beast dates from the Reagan Administration.