2. A horse that fails to run in a race for which it has been entered. [WordNet 1.5]
3. A proposal that will not receive serious consideration by those with authority to decide. [PJC]
In Washington, a White House official confirmed Wednesday that the message was delivered to Scowcroft but said it was "basically a nonstarter." "Our position has always been that Iraq must withdraw from Kuwait.
Brazil's finance minister dropped his radical plan to discount 50% of his nation's huge bank debt after Treasury Secretary James Baker rejected it as "a nonstarter."
Five years ago the experts told him that tax reform was a legislative and political nonstarter.
The analogy worth recalling here is "fairness" and taxes. Tax fairness was a nonstarter throughout the 1980s, until Mr. Bush abandoned his pro-growth, anti-tax platform last fall. Then Democrats made hay.