Fact Checking Palin on Reagan, Budget

Now, the counter argument to [Reagan raising spending] from Republicans is to claim that it’s Congress that really controls the budget and it was the Democratically-controlled Congress that passed huge budgets that Reagan didn’t want. But that is, in fact, totally wrong.

First of all, Republicans controlled the Senate for the first 6 years of his 8 year presidency, while Democrats controlled the House — so power was divided. Only in the last two years — 87 and 88, hence the 88 and 89 budgets — did the Democrats control both houses of Congress.

So let’s look at the difference between Reagan’s proposed budgets and the budgets actually passed by Congress during that time…

In 1982, Reagan proposed a budget of $508 billion; Congress passed a budget of $515 billion, a $7.1 billion increase. 1983: Congress passed a budget $8.7 billion higher than Reagan requested. 1984: Congress passed a budget $17.1 billion lower than Reagan requested. 1985, $5.3 billion lower than Reagan requested. 1986, $13.1 billion lower. 1987, $3.7 billion lower. 1988, $4.7 billion higher. 1989, $14.1 billion higher.

The final result: in those 8 years, Congress passed budgets $4.7 billion lower than the budgets Reagan requested. So much for the ridiculous claim that Reagan was a fiscal conservative and an enemy of big government.