cut-rate, adj. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

cut-rate adj.

[fig. use of SE cut-rate, economic, inexpensive]

(US) second-rate, inferior, unpleasant.

1945		C. Himes If He Hollers 140: Me and my goddamned two-cent pride, I thought; my cut-rate muscle and my blind dukes.
1972		E. Grogan Ringolevio 148: The cut-rate, parasitical prick!
1986		J. Ellroy Silent Terror 82: [M]y confrontations with the loading-dock trusties and the cut-rate Satan [i.e. Charles Manson].