strapping young buck

From a 1976 speech by Ronald Reagan, who complained of "strapping young bucks" using public assistance to buy T-Bone steaks, the phrase is shorthand for "undeserving and lazy black people living off hardworking white taxpayers instead of getting a job." Many commentators have noted that the phrase originated from the auction block. Now used ironically by liberal commentators to identify racist dog-whistles in conservative argument.

"Whereas once the problem was just welfare queens and strapping young bucks, now it’s the entire middle and lower classes, the lazy union members, the credit card deadbeats, the unemployed so content with their benefits that they don’t look for work."

'We Are All Strapping Young Bucks Now'
Doug J. _Balloon Juice_ January 6, 2011

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