guns and butter

English

Alternative forms
  • guns or butter, guns versus butter

Noun

guns and butter pl (plural only)

  1. Defense and social government spending, especially when seen as a trade-off.
    • 2001 October 1, David Walker, “Guns or butter? A hard choice for Gordon Brown”, in The Guardian‎:
      With colleagues clamouring for money, it suits him to say we cannot have both guns and butter.
    • 2022, Gary Gerstle, chapter 2, in The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order […] , New York: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, Part I. The New Deal Order, 1930–1980:
      Having to service demands for both guns and butter, the US economy began to overheat; inflation ensued.

Further reading
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