tax and spend

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

a pejorative phrase used primarily by fiscal conservatives to describe a political approach to government finance characterised by high taxation and large public expenditure, implying a ratchet in which government's appetite for both grows without restraint; the phrase was popularised as a critique of Keynesian and social-democratic fiscal policies from the 1970s onward, framing high-tax regimes as economically damaging and bureaucratically self-perpetuating; defenders of activist government reject the framing, arguing that public spending on infrastructure, education, and healthcare generates returns that justify the tax cost; the phrase remains a standard item in conservative political rhetoric, particularly in the United States and United Kingdom, where it is deployed to characterise opponents' fiscal proposals