Reagen's deficits were simply the price of liberating Eastern Europe (and eventually, many more). This money, unlike the mega-billions spent by the liberals in the war on poverty, actually helped people.
What the Reagen deficits accomplished was simply the clearest victory in American policy since V-J Day.
Hitchens and his fellow travelers will never forgive Ronald Reagen for the conclusive ass-kicking (sorry, mom) he gave their ideologies. When you're a sophisticated intellectual and an amiable dunce kicks your ass in the largest argument in the politics of Western culture, you can never really recover your self-respect.
Ain't that the truth. Reagan had to undo the FDR1 Eastern European 'giveaway'.
1: HST is also culpable. And let's not forget that during the initial phase of the Manhattan Project FDR was specifically kept OUT of the loop as he and his staff couldn't be trusted.