Beltway bandit
Beltway bandit is a term for private companies located in or near Washington, D.C., whose major business is to provide consulting services to the US government. The phrase was originally a mild insult, implying that the companies preyed like bandits on the largesse of the federal government, but it has lost much of its pejorative nature and is now often used as a neutral, descriptive term.[1][2]
The name comes from the Capital Beltway, the ring road that surrounds Washington. (The entire road is officially called Interstate 495, although the eastern half is cosigned with Interstate 95, which traverses most of the East Coast.) Many private contractors are located, or at least headquartered, at intersections along this road in order to be close to federal agencies and legislators. There is a tendency for contractors for the various civilian departments and agencies to locate along the Maryland portion of the Beltway, while defense contractors locate nearer to the Pentagon, along the Virginia section.[2]
History[edit]
An early use of the term may have been from a description of thieves who took advantage of the newly constructed Beltway to rob houses from their back yards, which were now exposed to the highway. Neighbors would not have seen them from the front yards, and by the time the police arrived, the thieves would have used the Beltway to escape to another state, when communications between Virginia and Maryland police departments was fairly rudimentary.[3]
In popular culture[edit]
"The Beltway Bandits" is an instrumental piece of music by Frank Zappa on his 1986 Jazz from Hell album. Beltway Bandits is also the name of Mid-Atlantic Women's Hockey League (amateur ice hockey) team in the DC area.[4]
References[edit]
- ↑ Day, Kathleen (9 February 1994). "Riding Herd on the Bad Guy Image of 'Beltway Bandits'". The Washington Post. Retrieved 11 December 2017.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Ceruzzi, Paul (2008). Internet Alley: High Technology in Tysons Corner, 1945-2005. MIT Press. ISBN 0262033747. Search this book on
- ↑ "Fairfax County Beltway Bandit Gets 30 Years". Washington Post. August 20, 1968. p. B3.
- ↑ Bandits hockey
- Wallace, Alton Smith. Life as a Beltway Bandit. 1996–1997 Mathematics in High Performance Computing. University of Minnesota, Minneapolis: Institute for Mathematics and Its Applications. Archived from the original on December 9, 2004. Retrieved December 12, 2017.
- Ellis, Mike, ed. (December 5, 2016). "Talk like the locals in Warshington, DC: Hollywood for ugly people". Slanguage. Retrieved December 12, 2017.
beltway bandit: Consulting company which does lots of government business
. - Example in a work of fiction: Ringo, John (2000). "Ch. 14: Habersham County GA, Sol III – 20:25 December 24th, 2001 AD". A Hymn Before Battle. Baen Books. Archived from the original on February 4, 2012. Retrieved December 12, 2017.
One of the recent reports generated by some Beltway Bandit, one of the numerous consulting firms on Washington's Beltway that provided specialized studies for the United States government, dealt with climatological changes.
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