kick the can down the road

Attested as an activity of idle urban youths since the late 19th century. The modern sense of procrastinate dates from the 1980s.

• "Ronald Lehman, deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategic and theater nuclear bombs, said the United States was satisfied with its land-based deterrent for many years and "there was a tendency to kick the can down the road and not pay enough attention to its problems."
• "To continue haggling over points on which a consensus seems impossible, Lehman said, is to "just keep kicking the can down the road.""
• "[R]eaching an alliance-wide consensus on them will be difficult. […] The natural temptation is to cling to the status quo, tinker on the edges or kick the can down the road."
• "Fundamentalism is a product of decades of official complicity, cowardice and appeasement. Sooner or later, Mr Sharif will be forced to realise that. Until then, he is merely kicking the can down the road."
• "[…] one might easily despair and kick the can down the road by waiting for the next generation of computers and physical and chemical probes that can be employed for in situ measurements of chemical processes before starting to implement the research program described."
• "It could not have more obvious that ATC was urgently needed - yet all the new Labour Government did was make vague promises of reviews and 'consideration'. It kicked the can down the road, as did subsequent governments."
• "“That was a big missed opportunity and I feel it’s unfair that we kicked the can down the road to the larger public,” said Dr. El Sahly, who voted “no” to the question about whether the safety data was adequate."
• "Normally, a seven-week continuing resolution would be standard practice for Congress, which excels at kicking the can down the road and often makes hard, longer-term decisions only when threatened with missing its vacation time – which is why it set the new pre-Thanksgiving deadline."

• adjourn
• avert
• defer
• delay
• dilly-dally
• draw out
• extend
• forslow
• forestall
• forestay
• kick into the long grass
• kick the can down the road
• postpone
• procrastinate
• prolong
• prorogue
• prorogate
• protract
• put off
• put on hold
• put on ice
• retard
• roll back
• stay
• suspend
• tarry

• can-kicking
• carry the can
• kick at the can
• kick into the long grass