Here's a little info on the Reagan "boom" cycle you mention. "Reagan was in Office from Jan, 21 1981 until Jan 20, 1989. The deficit at the end 1981 was $78 billion dollars.  His last budget deficit was $152 billion dollars. So during his term he had a net increase of only double, not triple.  the deficit under Reagan reached $207 billion in 1983, two years after Reagan passed the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 [3] which reduced taxes, effectively reducing tax revenue. It turned out to be too much loss of revenue, combined with increased spending, so in 1982 the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982 [4] rescinded some of those cuts, and a few more laws in following years helped bring in more revenue, but with increased spending, decreased the budget deficit back to the $152 billion in 1989. Revenue doubled in Reagan’s 8 years, but so did spending, which in turn caused the doubling of the deficit. "5  You might want to recheck your history re" the Reagan years.