Politics and Money

[DesertDrifter]

i think you are both right. reagan went from 60 billion annually to 400 billion. thus the average can be 267 during this explosion of debt during his term but he left it at 400 b annually due to the massive percentage increase.

As a short-run strategy to reduce inflation and lower nominal interest rates, the U.S. borrowed both domestically and abroad to cover the Federal budget deficits, raising the national debt from $997 billion to $2.85 trillion.[18] This led to the U.S. moving from the world's largest international creditor to the world's largest debtor nation.[19] Reagan described the new debt as the "greatest disappointment" of his presidency.[20]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaganomics

of course the budget hawks conveniently forget this, and it was in the face of major tax revenue increases.