mmissioned and ignored by the Reagan Administration, as well as being ignored by the Congress, correctly identified the type of government waste which is providing material assistance in maintaining the federal budget deficit ("What Ever Happened to the Grace Report?," 1989). One of the culprits he identi fied was excessive defense expenditures. It is hardly surprising that the military oriented Reagan Administration chose to ignore that finding. A second major culprit was entitlement programs. It is also hardly surprising that the government services to the public oriented Congressional majority chose to ignore that finding. The Grace report also noted that a failure on the part of the federal government to provide tax 3revenues sufficient to cover its spending programs was a major culprit in the federal budget deficit problem. Both the Admin istration (Reagan, and later Bush) and the Congress took this bit in their collective teeth; the Administration to blame the Congress for too much spending (ignoring the fact that the Reagan Administration never submitted a budget in which pro posed spending was reduced in absolute terms); the Congress to blame the Administration for not supporting revenue increases (ignoring the fact that Congress over the past eight years has not passed a major revenue increase to send to the President). As a consequence, of course, nothing happened, and that is likely what the Administration wanted; that is, in lieu of getting their own way entirely.
THE BUDGET DEFICIT AND ITS EFFECTS
When Ronald Reagan campaigned for the presidency in 1980, one of his most consistent themes concerned the federal govern ment's budget deficit. He continually preached of the economic evils of what he described as the irresponsibly high federal budget deficits, which he attributed wholly to the Carter Administration. Candidate Reagan pledged to restore economic sanity in t...