EvenSteven: You morons just can't stand the fact that the Congress and Obama are on pace to spend 3 times the money that Reagan did.

LeRoy: Let's check a few numbers, shall we? The current population of the United States is over 305 million. In Reagan's time, the U.S. population grew from about 227 million (in early 1981) to about 245 million (in early 1989). Thus, the U.S. population was about 34% greater at the time of Obama's inauguration than at the time of Reagan's inaguration. Other things being equal, you would expect the government to be spending ~34% more today, just to account for the growth of population. In fact, you would expect a larger increase than that, as we have a higher proportion of elderly people today than we did in Reagan's time, meaning that the costs of Medicare and Social Security have risen dramatically. Finally, your comparison totally ignores the effects of inflation over the past thirty years. Today, the Consumer Price Index is at about 216; in early 1981, it stood at ~83 (and in early 1989, it was at ~121). This means that the general price level has almost tripled since the time when Reagan first took over. [And many people would argue that the CPI has understated inflation over the past thirty years.]

Add together the population growth, the much larger numbers of elderly people, and the effects of inflation, and the increase in spending is pretty much in line with what any reasonable person would have expected.

EvenSteven: I also remind you that the democrats had control of Congress during the Reagan years. And I suggest you go back and study Civics 101 in high school and remember that the president PROPOSES the budgets, but, CONGRESS APPROVES them,

LeRoy: Learn some history---especially some economic history. The budgets proposed by Reagan had larger budget deficits than the budgets ultimately approved by Congress, in EACH of the eight years that Reagan was in office. The man had eight chances to submit a balanced budget, and never even came close to doing so. Balancing the budget was simply not important to Reagan----even though one of his major campaign promises was to 'balance the budget'.