Screeds

When They Say

You Should Hear

Abusive tax shelters

Survival foxholes for the productive

Affirmative action

Nouveau discrimination

Ally

Former or future enemy (e.g., Russia)

Antitrust laws

Unintelligible

Austerity

Higher taxes and government spending

Balanced budget

When Hell freezes over, maybe

Big

Bad, except for government

Black market

Free market

Brain drain

People with talent and hard sense fleeing to countries with stronger property rights and more personal freedom

Budget cuts

(bureaucratic profanity)

Bureaucrat

1. Professional parasite

2. Plunder broker

Campaign contribution

Down payment on future legislation

Campaign promises

Liar's poker

Capital gain

Automatic liability

Capital loss

(The IRS says this can't happen)

Capitalism

(undefined)

Cease-fire

Halftime for war

Civil servant

Government employee; neither civil nor servile

Commissions

Parking places for stubborn problems

Common good

"Just trust me"

Competition

The ultimate evil

Conservative

Someone opposed to high taxes and government spending, unless they benefit him or his constituency

Contribution

Extortion

Crisis

Excuse for raising taxes and hiring more bureaucrats

Cure

Bigger government

Currency

Worthless paper that bears the same relation to money as a car title bears to a stolen car

Cutting red tape

New regulations for old

Debt rescheduling

Declaring national bankruptcy ("if you don't have it, flaunt it!")

Defensive weapon

Russian bomber in Cuba

Deficit spending

Kiting checks

Democracy

"The bludgeoning of the people, for the people, by the people" (Oscar Wilde)

Department of Energy

OPEC's Washington lobbyists

Depression

Government-inflicted wound to the economy

Destructive competition

Competition that increases the volume of goods and services while lowering their prices and otherwise "destroying" prosperity

Develop

Corrupt or destroy (e.g., "develop" the economy)

Dictator (friendly)

A criminal (e.g., Somoza) who oppresses the people, admires Hitler, and embraces fascism.

Dictator (unfriendly)

A criminal (e.g., Castro) who oppresses the people, admires Stalin, and embraces Communism.

Diplomacy

Saying "nice doggy" winningly while groping for a rock.

Discrimination

(see "graduated income tax")

Dumping

Bargains for consumers on imports

Easy money

Inflation

Economic democracy

Socialism

Economic policy

Reelection strategy

Election

"advance auction of stolen goods" (H.L. Mencken)

Embassy

Espionage headquarters

Enemy

Former or future ally (e.g., Russia)

Energy crisis

"Oh my God, what have we done?"

Ethics

(undefined)

Entitlement program

Institutionalized theft

Essential

Luxury we can't afford

Fact-finding tour

All-expenses-paid vacation

Fair

Too many meanings to list here

Federal debt

"We'll spend it; you'll pay it."

Federal Reserve Note

"We make money the old fashioned way; we print it."

Fiscal dividend

Taxes generated by inflating hapless Americans into higher tax brackets

Flexible

Unprincipled

Foreign aid

Auction for "allies"

Foreign policy

"perpetual war for perpetual peace" (Charles A. Beard)

Forgotten man

Taxpayer

Freedom

"Voting makes you free, doesn't it?" (cf. Russia)

Free trade

(undefined)

Government

"An association of men who do violence to the rest of us" (Leo Tolstoy)

Government Accounting Office

Chaplain of the whorehouse

Government estimate

Wrong

Government loan

Gift

Government employee

Diligent loafer

Hard-core unemployed

Politician or bureaucrat

Helping the poor

Plundering the productive

Hoarding

Saving

Honor

Swollen ego

Improving compliance

Threatening louder

Industrial policy

Causing companies to go bankrupt with government interference and then investing tax money in them (cf. Lockheed)

Inflation

Unarmed robbery via the printing press

Inflexible

Unwilling to sell out your principles for a government job or a pork barrel appropriation

Internal Revenue Service

"We provide relief from prosperity!"

Investment

Speculation

Jobs bill

Bureaucrats get the jobs; taxpayers foot the bill.

Justice

(undefined)

Keynesian

Economist who believes that prosperity is the result of printing more zeroes on more pieces of paper

Law

Formal injustice

Leadership

Staying on top of the polls

Legal tender

Worthless paper currency backed by a gun

Liberal

Government worshipper

Lynch mob

Informal injustice

Majority rule

Mutually assured plunder

Managing

Interfering

Market failure

"We want MORE!"

Meaningful dialogue

Empty posturing and rhetoric

Minimum wage

Price controls on human flesh

Monetary policy

Rate of inflation

Money

Currency

Monopoly

Successful business whose campaign contributions went to the losing candidate

Nationalization

Confiscation

Necessary

Don't argue

Negotiation

Surrender

New Deal

Socialism

No

(undefined; this is a word that politicians apparently cannot say)

Nonaligned country

Dictator shopping for the best deal

Objective

(see "necessary")

Obscene profits

Imaginary gains from inflation (Jimmy Carter's overworked imagination)

Off-budget items

Underground government

Offensive weapon

Russian bomber in Russia

Open society

"What's wrong with wiretapping?"

Paternalism

Totalitarianism

Peacekeeping force

U.S. troops furnished to a Third World hellhole for target practice

Peace with honor

Surrender

Permanent

(undefined)

Police action

Mass murder with conventional weapons ("Is killing conventional?" -- Arthur Herzog)

Political crisis

Not getting reelected

Positive action

Inflation

Price controls

"How dare you call our freshly printed currency worthless!"

Principle

"Something that politicians must rise above" (H.L. Mencken)

Promise

A firmly tentative maybe

Property taxes

Protection money for real estate

Public interest group

(see "economic pressure group")

Public servant

Public master

Rationing

"Now that we've killed the goose, we have to divide up the eggs fair and square"

Reaganomics

Spending oneself rich

Realism

Socialism

Recession

"My nature is too refined to use the word 'depression' "

Redistribution

Trolling for votes

Regulation

Strangulation

Reindustrialization

"Invest in yesterday!"

Rent control

(see "redistribution")

Revenue shortfall

Spending hemorrhage

Rights

Desires or demands

Selfish

Wanting to keep what you earned

Social justice

More government

Social Security

Government Ponzi scheme

Socially responsible

Submissive

Speculators

People who attempt to protect themselves from irresponsible government economic interventions by buying hard assets

Spending cuts

(bureaucratic profanity)

Stabilization

Subsidization or price control

Statesman

Politician unable to attain elective office

Stimulating the economy

Inflation

Supply management

Pouring milk into the gutter to raise milk prices

Tariff

Restraint of trade by government

Tax audit

Guilty until proven innocent

Tax benefits

The thanks you owe a burglar who refrains from taking everything

Tax cut

Tax increase

Tax-free

"We haven't gotten to it yet"

Tax protestor

Citizen under the delusion that the Constitution will be upheld by the courts

Tax return

Signed confession

Taxation

Armed robbery

Taxpayers

Victims ("Stand still, little sheep, and be shorn.")

Temporary

Permanent (e.g., withholding tax)

Tight money

Restraint of inflation

Transfer payments

(see "majority rule")

Treaty

Meaningless scrap of paper

Trust fund

Betrayal fund

Underground economy

(see "black market")

Unemployment

Gainful idleness

Unfair competition

Healthy competition

Unpatriotic

Someone who declines self-immolation

Verifiable

Unverifiable

Voluntary

Compulsory (e.g., "voluntary taxation")

Voluntary import quota

Extortionary restraint of trade

Voluntary taxation

Decline to volunteer and receive a free vacation behind bars

Voodoo economics

Cutting spending and ceasing to inflate

Voting

Choosing between evils

War of national liberation

War of national enslavement

War on poverty

War on property rights and prosperity

Waste

(undefined)

Wasteful duplication of services

(see "unfair competition")

Welfare

Generosity with someone else's money

Zero-based budgeting

Race to add zeroes to government budgets