starving the beast query

Tue Mar 9 16:53:13 UTC 2004

FWIW,

The Times, Tuesday, Dec 24, 1974; pg. 16; Issue 59278; col A
Babes in the Wood or Great Britain on Ice
Category: Business and Finance
A Financial Pantomime
...
Act I, sc 2:
The babes are still benighted, their miserable
belongings shrunk even smaller. Enter Denis the
Menace, who rushes up to the Babes, embracing
them with mock affection.
THE MENACE: "Why Babes!
What's this? You're fright-
     ened sore,
But shadows of yourselves of
     yore.
Come to my arms -- no need
     to shriek--
(Aside to audience): I'll
squeeze 'em till their last pips
     squeak!
The little dears! They've
     money yet--
Transfers of capital I'm set
To tax away. I'll clinch the
     squeeze
With surcharges on compan-
     ies.
I'll act on ACT and milk 'em
     dry.
What of Inflation? He roars
     high--
I'd best pretend to wear him
     down
With fiscal fusillade and
     frown--
But I'll not starve the beast
     in haste;
He might lay my consti-
     tuency to waste!"

At 07:17 AM 3/9/04, Grant wrote:
>I've done a bit of digging on this term. In the economic sense, I have
>an early cite from the Washington Post, Oct. 21, 1985, attributed to
>Stockman, but it could easily go back further (though it is the same
>one Paul McFedries has at WordSpy, and likely where your colleague
>found the information). I was more concerned with substantiating the
>term's existence and meaning than I was with finding an absolute point
>of origin.
>
>In 1992, Sen. Moynihan said something which leads me to believe the
>Reagan Presidential Library would be the best place to verify the
>origin of the economic term, particularly in documents relating to the
>transition team: "The first thing to know about the budget deficit is
>that it was designed to paralyze domestic policy. I can testify that
>this is difficult to comprehend. The policy--it was known in the inside
>as 'starve the beast'--was put in place in the first months of the
>Reagan administration, having been formulated the previous autumn."
>
>There's also a joke I have seen repeatedly as explaining the skeptic's
>view of "starve the beast" economics. In it, a man, thinking his mule
>costs too much to feed, gradually cuts its food ration every day. One
>day the man comes around without his mule and his friends ask, "Where's
>the mule?" The man says, "Just when I got him down to eating nothing
>every day, he up and died on me." I do not have cites for this joke.
>
>These are probably false leads, but:
>
>There is a story from Dial, June 1920, p. 693, which bears a similarity
>to the "starve the beast" economics detractor's view, though it was
>more concerned with obstructionist policies. In the tale, titled "A
>Political Horse," said horse resists all attempts to move, whether it
>be pulled, pushed, lifted, kicked, beat, lured with oats, flattered,
>insulted, etc. It goes, "We decided finally that it was of no use and
>the only weapon we had left to use was--starvation. We would starve the
>beast until he stood upon his legs, realizing also that the more we
>starved him, the less would he be able to stand on his legs." The horse
>moves when bothered by an automobile, however.
>
>"Starve the beast" was also used in the Twenties as part of an
>anti-tuberculosis campaign. How widespread the campaign was, I do not
>know. I have seen just a handful of ads for the campaign.
>
>The cites below have the neither the frequency of occurence nor the
>ring of a pat phrase like the economic or tubercular "starve the
>beast."
>
>An 1898 article in the Sandusky, Ohio, Morning Star about conditions in
>Cuba reads, "Men are starved [there] as the laws of this land will not
>allow the citizens to starve the beast."
>
>Another cite from Dec. 1912 in the Sheboygan Press: "Can the most
>learned savant of Harvard or the Sorbonne tell you anything new about
>how to starve the beast and nourish the angel in you, anything Marcus
>Aurelius or Saul of Tarsus had not told?"
>
>
>On Mar 9, 2004, at 08:57, Allen D. Maberry wrote:
>
>>I have a query from a colleague about the phrase "starving the beast"
>>used in economics which refers to the government policy of tax cuts in
>>order to take money away from the federal administration and to
>>increase the deficit, which, in turn, forces the government to reduce
>>spending. My colleague did a Google search and traced the phrase back
>>to Reagan budget advisor David Stockman in the early 1980s.
>>
>>Is that the first use of the expression in the economic sense? Is it
>>used in other contexts and if so what are they, and where did the
>>phrase originate?
>>
>>Many thanks in advance for your help.
>>
>>allen
>>maberry at u.washington.edu
>>
>--
>Grant Barrett
>
>Assistant Editor, Lexical Reference
>Project Editor, Historical Dictionary of American Slang
>Oxford University Press
>
>American Dialect Society webmaster
>http://www.americandialect.org/

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