History
On July 14, 1978, economist Alan Greenspan gave testimony to the U.S. Finance Committee: "Let us remember that the basic purpose of any tax cut program in today's environment is to reduce the momentum of expenditure growth by restraining the amount of revenue available and trust that there is a political limit to deficit spending."
Prior to being elected as the President, then-candidate Ronald Reagan foreshadowed the strategy during the 1980 US Presidential debates, saying "John Anderson tells us that first we've got to reduce spending before we can reduce taxes. Well, if you've got a kid that's extravagant, you can lecture him all you want to about his extravagance. Or you can cut his allowance and achieve the same end much quicker."
The earliest use of the actual term "starving the beast" to refer to the political-fiscal strategy (as opposed to its conceptual premise) was in a Wall Street Journal article in 1985 where the reporter quoted an unnamed Reagan staffer.
Read more about this topic: Starve The Beast
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