red tape

Alluding to the former practice of binding government documents in red-colored tape. First use appears c. 1658 in the publication Public Intelligencer. See cite below.

• "All the red tape and paperwork that goes on there prevents any progress."
• "That committee does not cut through red tape ; it merely provides better scheduling for different agencies so you do not have sequential review by different agencies , so that you have some kind of simultaneity in the review by different agencies."
• "One conspicuous cost of the compromise reached was a promise made by Senator Chuck Schumer to Manchin on what was vaguely called permitting reform: a catchall phrase referring to a whole host of efforts to cut red tape and ease the rollout of energy infrastructure."
• "They said we’d be free of all that tedious European red tape and would take back control of our borders, encouraging anyone agitated by immigration to believe that fewer people would come in. […] Post-Brexit red tape is strangling thousands of small businesses, whether travelling musicians or exporters of goods, tying them up in daunting forms or extra charges that cost time and money they don’t have."

• administrivia
• administrativia
• paperwork