Slush fund
Encyclopedia
A slush fund, colloquially, is an auxiliary monetary account or a reserve fund. However, in the context of corrupt
Political corruption
Political corruption is the use of legislated powers by government officials for illegitimate private gain. Misuse of government power for other purposes, such as repression of political opponents and general police brutality, is not considered political corruption. Neither are illegal acts by...

 dealings, such as those by governments or large corporations, a slush fund can have particular connotations of illegality, illegitimacy, or secrecy in regard to the use of this money and the means by which the funds were acquired.

Political dealings with slush funds tend to create suspicions of quid pro quo
Quid pro quo
Quid pro quo most often means a more-or-less equal exchange or substitution of goods or services. English speakers often use the term to mean "a favour for a favour" and the phrases with almost identical meaning include: "give and take", "tit for tat", "this for that", and "you scratch my back,...

 (buying political favors), and can be viewed on the surface as corrupt and subversive of the democratic process. For example, Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...

's "Checkers speech
Checkers speech
The Checkers speech or Fund speech was an address made by Richard Nixon, the Republican vice presidential candidate and junior United States Senator from California, on television and radio on September 23, 1952. Senator Nixon had been accused of improprieties relating to a fund established by his...

" of 1952 was a successful effort to dispel a scandal concerning a rumored slush fund of campaign contributions.

The term slush fund is used in accounting to describe a general ledger
General ledger
The main accounting record of a business which uses double-entry bookkeeping. It will usually include accounts for such items as current assets, fixed assets, liabilities, revenue and expense items, gains and losses. Each General Ledger is divided into debits and credits sections. The left hand...

 account in which all manner of transactions can be posted to commingled funds and "loose" monies by debit
Debit
Debit and credit are the two aspects of every financial transaction. Their use and implication is the fundamental concept in the double-entry bookkeeping system, in which every debit transaction must have a corresponding credit transaction and vice versa.Debits and credits are a system of notation...

s' and credit
Credit (finance)
Credit is the trust which allows one party to provide resources to another party where that second party does not reimburse the first party immediately , but instead arranges either to repay or return those resources at a later date. The resources provided may be financial Credit is the trust...

s' cancelling each other out.

Etymology

The term slush fund was originally a nautical term
Glossary of nautical terms
This is a glossary of nautical terms; some remain current, many date from the 17th-19th century. See also Wiktionary's nautical terms, :Category:Nautical terms, and Nautical metaphors in English.- A :...

: the slush was the fat
Fat
Fats consist of a wide group of compounds that are generally soluble in organic solvents and generally insoluble in water. Chemically, fats are triglycerides, triesters of glycerol and any of several fatty acids. Fats may be either solid or liquid at room temperature, depending on their structure...

 or grease
Yellow grease
Yellow grease is derived from used cooking oil from the fast-food industry. It is used to feed livestock, and to make soap, make-up, clothes, rubber, detergents, and bio-diesel fuel....

 that was obtained by boiling salted meat
Salt-cured meat
Salt-cured meat or salted meat, for example bacon and kippered herring, is meat or fish preserved or cured with salt. Salting, either with dry salt or brine, was the only widely available method of preserving meat until the 19th century...

. The sale of the fat could then be used to provide the crew with special luxuries. The money obtained from this sale was placed into the slush fund.
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