The Reagan Budget: A Significant Departure from the Past

In the aggregate President Reagan's budget does not differ significantly from budget growth during the early 1970s. If the budget is slightly disaggregated, however, it is clear that the Administration is dramatically altering U.S. spending patterns. As part of his program for economic recovery announced last February and March, President Reagan called for $475 billion in budget reductions over fiscal years 1981–86. He also proposed the use of the budget reconciliation process provided for in the 1974 Congressional Budget Act as the vehicle for implementing the first installment of these massive cuts in federal spending. In this paper I will discuss the Reagan budget plan in broad outline, and then compare certain aspects of it with the outcome of the reconciliation process and with some recent budget trends.