feed the beast

feed the beast

1. In politics, to fund or supplement governmental spending, especially through increased tax revenue. Primarily heard in US, South Africa. Politicians are always looking for new ways to feed the beast, but if we really want the economy to recover, we need to be cutting taxes across the board.
2. To devote or contribute an undue amount of resources, time, or energy to a self-perpetuating pursuit, situation, behavior, or desire. His addiction had become so severe that he sold everything he owned to keep feeding the beast. The country's leaders enlisted every able man to feed the beast of its war of expansion. We're brainwashed from a young age to continue feeding the beast of consumerism.
See also: beast, feed
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.
See also:
  • chip
  • chips
  • up on (one's) ear
  • ghetto
  • ghetto bird
  • bull session
  • one of the boys
  • one of the lads
  • cat's pajamas
  • be one of the boys
References in periodicals archive
"My father used to say a neighborhood is like an organism, a living thing, always changing," Aidan Moran, an aging, racist scaffolding magnate played by John Doman in "Feed the Beast," says in the show's early episodes, describing the endless racial turnover in his neighborhood in the South Bronx.
One of New Hampshire's legendary attention-cravers, Chris Spirou--a former House minority leader and Dem Party chair --found the perfect way a couple weeks back to feed the beast known as his ego.
Less is more: Today, the leading brands are starting to stop the "feed the beast" mentality and are starting to focus on truly inspiring and helpful content for customers.
He was distributing allowances, left, right and centre to proved his supposed sensitivity to the needs of the 'ordinary person', while carrying on the practice of his predecessors of borrowing money to feed the beast of the public sector.
He strode on stage to launch a stinging attack on ex-wife Faye Eichelberger and bemoan the fact he'd had to hit the tour trail to raise $20m in alimony - or "feed the beast" as he put it.
As I told a senior Argentine official at the AMIA commemoration, quoting Winston Churchill on appeasing tyranny: "Democracies feed the beast, hoping to be eaten last." In the case of Iran, the beast is alive and living among us.
About 70 percent of insurance industry IT budgets are used to feed the beast, just to keep the existing platforms running smoothly, according to Kevin Kelly, executive vice president for Enterprise Markets at XDimensional Technologies and a well-known insurance technology consultant and iconoclast.
This sort of bubble ends when there isn't enough liquidity to feed the beast.
(2006) "Don't Feed the Beast." Washington Post (8 May): A19.
My coffee habit is back and I'm off to feed the beast again.
The answer to this crisis is not to feed the beast more but to scrutinize the laws already passed with the idea of eliminating (decriminalizing) the bloated over-regulating criminal laws that serve no necessary purpose and to reduce the burden on the people due to having to enforce such nonsense.
"This is roughly in line with theories that mergers shake up a galaxy and 'feed the beast' by allowing fresh gas to fall toward the black hole," Mushotzky said.
They wanted to "feed the beast" and so avoid interference and questions from bodies higher up the NHS hierarchy.
Maybe it was Lee At-water who said, "Feed the beast or it will feed on you." Except you can never feed the beast enough in the current political environment.
While selling newspaper buildings isn't a new thing -- the trend of moving presses away from the city center is at least three decades old and once the presses are out, thee's no real reason to stay -- the sudden flurry speaks to the issue of the need for newly leveraged, non-public publishers to continue to feed the beast that is the investment banks.