Government Slang, Jargon, and New Words from Double-Tongued Dictionary

Citations in the Category Government

Washington D.C., United Nations, state and local governments, civil service, Federal government, bureaucracy, etc. You can also see entries assigned to this category.

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birth tax n. He complained that everyone talks about the “death tax,” while he wants to do something about the “birth tax,” that is, the $156,000 that is each American’s share of the federal debt burden. [English Government Money & Finance] [full cite] (Jul. 31, 2006)

black box n. You can add a fourth box to the amber, blue and green boxes the World Trade Organization uses to try to keep straight the “aggregate measures of support” member countries provide to agriculture. The fourth is a “black box,” the term U.S. trade officials have adopted to describe the loopholes some countries are trying to carve out in the ongoing debate over increased market access, the issue that has ground the Doha Development Round to a halt. [English Business Government Politics Jargon] [full cite] (Jul. 25, 2006)

blue badger n. As the Los Angeles Times first reported last October, more than half the workforce in two key CIA stations in the fight against terrorism—Baghdad and Islamabad, Pakistan—is made up of industrial contractors, or “green badgers,” in CIA parlance. Intelligence insiders say that entire branches of the NCS have been outsourced to private industry. These branches are still managed by U.S. government employees ("blue badgers") who are accountable to the agency’s chain of command. But beneath them, insiders say, is a supervisory structure that’s controlled entirely by contractors; in some cases, green badgers are managing green badgers from other corporations. [English Government Jargon] [full cite] (Jul. 9, 2007)

blue-state tax n. Democratic leaders in Congress are vowing to make the alternative minimum tax a centerpiece of next year’s budget debate, saying the levy threatens to unfairly increase tax bills for millions of middle-class families by the end of the decade.…The focus on the tax is hardly surprising, given that victims of the tax have been concentrated in high-cost urban areas such as Washington, New York, and San Francisco—places that tend to vote Democratic. Rangel, Hoyer, and Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, the minority leader, all represent states hit hard by the tax, which is sometimes called the “blue-state tax.” To map states with the highest concentrations of such taxpayers is to draw bull’s-eyes over California and the Northeastern seaboard [English Government Money & Finance Politics] [full cite] (Nov. 16, 2006)

bureauon n. Cobb tried to block FBI agents from issuing search warrants to NASA offices and frequently referred to his employees as “knuckle draggers” and “bureauons,” his shorthand for bureaucratic morons, according to testimony. [English Government Derogatory New or Nonce Slang] [full cite] (Jun. 8, 2007)

Cha Cha n. Arroyo is pressing ahead with her plans for constitution change, also widely known in the Philippines as “Cha Cha”, short for Charter Change. Under the proposal, the present two parliamentary bodies would be reduced to one, which would elect a prime minister, reducing the current executive president to a largely formal head of state. Arroyo has also made a series of proposals to remove constitutional restrictions on the operation of foreign capital in the Philippines. [English Philippines Government Colloquial Abbreviation] [full cite] (Jul. 29, 2006)

circuit breaker n. I do qualify for the circuit breaker—or as I call it, rent refund program. This state program provides refunds to primarily property taxpayers, if their taxes exceed a certain percentage of income; however, the other part of the program provides relief to renters and there are more and more of us every day. [English Government Money & Finance] [full cite] (Sep. 16, 2006)

clay pigeon n. A GOP leadership aide and the White House predicted Monday that enough Republicans are prepared to join Democrats to limit debate on the motion to proceed to the bill (S 1639). That would keep the measure alive and allow the Senate to begin debate on nearly two dozen amendments, using a rare procedure called a “clay pigeon” to speed the normally slow Senate process. After most of the amendments have been acted on, another cloture vote would come on the bill itself, probably Thursday. [English United States Government Politics] [full cite] (Jun. 26, 2007)

crash and bang n. Most people are familiar with what those of us in the service refer to as “crash and bang,” which is actually a very serious program that’s designed as a five-day Diplomatic Security antiterrorism course that helps provide people with some skills and some abilities to help cope with some of the situations they might confront in countries where terrorism or other dangers present themselves.…Well, the—what I fondly referred to as crash and bang…is a course that’s been around at least since 1992, although obviously in modified form now. There is specialized training now for Iraq that began back in 2004 as we began to set up the Embassy [English United States Government Military Slang] [full cite] (May. 3, 2007)

deep state n. Outside, thousands gathered with banners proclaiming solidarity with the dead Turkish-Armenian writer: “We are all still Hrant Dink”; “We want to see justice done.” Many Turks are convinced that a so-called “deep state”—a network of state agents or former officials, possibly with links to organised crime—periodically targets reformists and other perceived enemies in the name of nationalism. [English Government Politics] [full cite] (Jul. 5, 2007)

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