magic asterisk
magic asterisk noun: an unspecified future budget cut, especially an imaginary cut.
Noun
magic asterisk (plural magic asterisks)
- an unspecified future budget cut, especially an imaginary cut.
- The other technique, known as the "magic asterisk," consisted of hiding phony cuts in the small print of various budget documents in order to exaggerate the Administration's success in spending reduction and to minimize the projected deficit.1986 May 11, Michael Kinsley, “IN THE LAND OF THE MAGIC ASTERISK”, in New York Times
- Howard Baker, then a Senator, had dubbed them the "magic asterisk," for it was blithely assumed that they would be taken care of at a later date.1991, Wallace C. Peterson, Transfer Spending, Taxes, and the American Welfare State, Kluwer Academic Publishers, section 99
Forms of magic asterisk
| plural | magic asterisks |
|---|
Origin of magic asterisk
Coined by Howard Henry Baker Jr., from the Reagan administration's use in 1981 of asterisks as placeholders for cuts yet to be decided in government spending.
Questions about magic asterisk
- What does magic asterisk mean?
- Magic asterisk means an unspecified future budget cut, especially an imaginary cut.
- What part of speech is magic asterisk?
- Magic asterisk is a noun.
- What is the plural of magic asterisk?
- The plural of magic asterisk is magic asterisks.
Words near magic asterisk in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: magic asterisk (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-magic asterisk.ogg.
Cite this entry: “magic asterisk.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/magic_asterisk. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.