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They’re getting rid of ‘red tape’ in Washington. Literally.

The National Archives is selling the storied ‘tape’ — actually woven cotton — once used to bind government documents

By
January 16, 2023 at 5:00 a.m. EST
Red tape, documents, and scissors.
(iStock/Washington Post illustration)
5 min

For 25 years, the National Archives has been working to rid itself of government red tape — through its gift shop.

We’re talking about actual, physical tape: the red-dyed lengths of fabric that were used from the 1780s to the 1980s to bundle many of the nation’s documents, and that, according to the Archives, gave rise to “red tape” as shorthand for bureaucratic entanglements.