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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flush tax n. The U.S. Department of Defense has agreed to spend $22 million upgrading its wastewater- treatment plants throughout Maryland in lieu of paying the Ehrlich administration’s “flush tax”—a move that ends nearly two years of legal wrangling and makes money immediately available to reduce pollution flowing into the Chesapeake Bay. [English Government Money & Finance] [full cite] (Jul. 26, 2006)

FOIA n. The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee passed the Open Government Act on April 12, a bill that would strengthen one of the most powerful tools Americans have to oversee the inner workings of government—the Freedom of Information Act. The new law would reduce delays and make officials more accountable for violations. Reporters, including those at Fort Worth Weekly, rely on FOIAs, or “foyas” as they’re called in the biz, to get information (the FOI Act, technically, applies to federal documents; other open records laws cover state and local government records). [English Government Media Acronym] [full cite] (Jun. 1, 2007)

funding cliff n. Naturally, however, there’s a budget sleight-of-hand. Known as a “funding cliff,” the yearly Schip layout increases to $13.9 billion in 2011, then abruptly cuts spending by 65% below current funding levels. This helps “score” the bill as costing only $35 billion over the five-year budget window, but it also means that come 2012 Congress will either have to pass new spending or kick kids off the rolls. [English Government Money & Finance Jargon] [full cite] (Oct. 6, 2007)

futarchy n. Robin D. Hanson, an economist at George Mason University, proposes a “futarchy,” a form of government enhanced by prediction markets. Voters would decide broad goals of national welfare, but betting in speculative markets would determine the policy steps to achieve those goals. [English Government] [full cite] (Apr. 10, 2008)

GADA n. Special units of real, uniformed, American soldiers are prosecuting a global war of staggering brutality. President George W. Bush gave an order—at one time referred to as a “GADA” (go anywhere, do anything)—similar to, but far more extensive than, the GADA issued by President Ronald Reagan years ago: assassinations; field executions of unarmed people stopped for questioning; violent, on-the-spot interrogations of detained individuals; and other activities abominable and o-so-necessary in the passions of the age and the minds of those with no better solutions to a world in which others hate us and want to hurt us. [English Government Military Acronym] [full cite] (Oct. 4, 2007)

ghost voting n. The mailer focuses on a practice called ghost voting, a widespread practice of voting for fellow members in the Texas House. [English Government Jargon] [full cite] (Oct. 5, 2008)

governist n. It worked for Y2K and Big Al, and the global governists pulling his strings are trying to use the same fear mongering here to build carbon as a currency for global control of energy. [English Government New or Nonce] [full cite] (Nov. 23, 2008)

green 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)

hold five v. phr. As the justices write and circulate their drafts, colleagues might have second thoughts about how they voted right after oral arguments. The author of the opinion for the court tries not to lose the majority (five of the nine). “Holding five,” as it is called, means the author must make compromises. But a compromise for one justice might drive another one to the dissenting side. In a close case, justices writing a dissent hope to pick off a vacillating justice by exploring potential weaknesses in the majority’s reasoning. [English Government Law] [full cite] (Jun. 6, 2007)

hotline v. Senate conservatives are upset that the leaders of both parties in the chamber have in recent years increasingly used a practice known as “hotlining” bills—previously used to quickly move noncontroversial bills or simple procedural motions—to pass complex and often costly legislation, in some cases with little or no public debate. [English Government Jargon] [full cite] (Sep. 18, 2007)

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