Reagan won the 1980 presidential election claiming the national debt was at an all time high of $1 trillion, and he would bring it down. It was almost that high, but compared to the size of the American economy it was the smallest it had been in over 50 years. It just looked big because of inflation, but Reagan either did not understand inflation or enjoyed his little deception.
Beyond dispute is the fact that eight years later, when he left office, the debt was $2.6 trillion. "When a conservative says it is bad for the government to spend more than it takes in, he is simply showing the same common sense that tells him to come in out of the rain." (Reagan, 1977) By his own standard, he showed an amazing lack of common sense.
To cover for him, Republicans often blame his deficits on the Congress. So I went to the most
extreme pro-Reagan website
and used their numbers for how Congress changed Reagan's budgets.
Now, a lot the pork Congress added was added by Republicans, and it's entirely possible that these numbers are exaggerated, but let's accept them as the gospel and blame the budget changes entirely on Democrats. What do the numbers say?
The annual budget changes are $51, $35, −$11, $6, $17, $10, $40 and $50 billion dollars. And that adds up to $200 billion which is $0.2 trillion. But Reagan grew the debt by over $1.6 trillion. Hmmm. So the pro-Reagan site talks of a "compounding increase of 2.8% every year during the 8 budget years." In fact the extra Congressional debt would have carried a 12.8% interest rate in Reagan's first fiscal year, falling to 8.8% in his last year. That increases the damage supposedly inflicted by the Democrats to $290 billion ($0.29 trillion). But that still barely makes a dent in Reagan's gigantic deficits.
How did the pro-Reagan site miss this? They "forgot" that the debt comes from causing "the government to spend more than it takes in," just as Reagan said. They looked only at spending. What caused most of the problem was Reagan's tax cuts for the rich.
He may have had no intention busting the budget, but there can be no question that he is entirely to blame for knocking America off course—way off course—from its 43-year bipartisan march toward paying off the debt that pulled us out of the great depression and helped us win World War II.