Show some proof that Reagan reduced the size, power and cost of the fedgov.
There are several articles here, to review.
https://www.google.com/search?num=20&newwindow=1&source=hp&ei=IfWmWo3IC-uF0wLSiLTQDg&q=government+growth+reagan&oq=government+growth+reagan&gs_l=psy-ab.12..0i22i30k1.1170.12424.0.14561.25.22.0.2.2.0.126.2010.21j1.22.0....0...1c.1.64.psy-ab..1.24.2046.0..0j35i39k1j0i131k1.0.lFthzE4wJnA
There was also a splendid chapter, "The Failure of the Reagan Gambit," in David Frum's book
Dead Right. In that chapter, he argued primarily
that Reagan's aims
could have been achieved but
weren't, primarily because Reagan
a) was unable to persuade Capitol Hill to resist the rise of social welfare spending;
b) A decade of what Frum described as "stealthy tax increases" eroded the Reagan tax cuts where spending hikes didn't
(
how often did we hear and remember that Reagan would ask for spending cuts in return for some of those "stealthy" tax
increases, Congress would say yes, then when it came time to sign the deals Congress essentially told him "eff you" when
he asked, essentially, "ok, I gave you those little taxes, where did my spending cuts go?");
c) The specific Kemp-Roth tax cut was made null and void by rising Social Security taxes;
d) Reagan himself wasn't really calling for real spending cuts in the first place---he called merely for slowing the
growthof spending hikes.
e) Assorted and sundry Reagan aides and even Cabinet members who breathed fire over slashing big government suddenly
found themselves making peace with the bastard once they got into the government---even men like Bill Bennett, Ed Meese,
and William French Smith.
f) Reagan himself was an inconsistent fiscal conservative. Wasn't it so that he often said he wasn't trying to undo the New
Deal since he himself voted for FDR four times, he was only trying to undo Lyndon Johnson's Great Society?
