Ever wondered why you simply can’t understand bureaucratese? It’s a problem that daunts many people, what with phraseology like “firmly tentative,” “bold caution,” and “interim final rules.” But never fear: your old friend Fran is on the job, and herewith presents the First Edition (collectors be alert!) of his fabulous…
DICTIONARY OF GOVERNMENT DOUBLESPEAK
Like the exotic language it unravels, this dictionary is a living, growing document; interested parties are warmly invited to submit their favorite statist obfuscations for inclusion in future editions. Meanwhile, welcome to the land of American Newspeak, where currency becomes money, law becomes justice, plunder becomes taxation, inflation becomes price increases, war becomes peace, freedom becomes slavery, and ignorance becomes strength. It looks like English, it sounds like English, but the English I learned in school, it ain’t.
| 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 |
