Until 2012

After four months in office, Reagan told the Congress: "High taxes and excess spending created our present economic mess. More of the same will not cure the hardship, anxiety and discouragement it has imposed on the American people." So, a man who made his political reputation by attacking "tax-and-spend" Democrats became president and invented "borrow-and-spend" Republicanism.

This was called Reaganomics. Unfortunately, it did not work. When Reagan became president — and began to cut taxes — the federal deficit was 2.5 percent of the national economy. When he left, eight years later, the deficit was 5 percent of the economy. Interest payments on the debt jumped from $69 billion in 1981 to $169 billion in 1988. At the time, those were astonishing numbers, and they have exploded since.

That’s where we are now. The leaders of Reagan’s party — he would be a left-wing Republican now — seem to truly believe that they, and they alone, know the secret other politicians have sought: Reduce the deficit, balance the budget and save the republic.

That’s quite a reversal from only a few years ago when Vice President Richard Cheney said that, politically, Reagan had proved that deficits don’t matter. After all, Reagan ran up more debt than any of his predecessors and easily won re-election. This time they matter mightily, at least until 2012.
~ from The Money Melodrama in Washington by Richard Reeves ~