PUMP-PRIMING

a variation of the phrase priming the pump: giving financial aid to an enterprise in the hope that it will become self-supporting. From starting a pump working by pouring in water to establish suction. —PDC Volume 4 Approved Glossary

the action of providing financial aid or increasing governmental expenditures in an attempt to stimulate the economy. This is used in reference to the various relief programs enacted by US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945) in an attempt to speed economic recovery of the United States from the Great Depression of the 1930s. (To prime a pump means to prepare it for operation.)a variation of the phrase priming the pump giving financial aid to an enterprise in the hope that it will become self-supporting. From starting a pump working by pouring in water to establish suction.