You are quite correct.
There were overwhelming odds in both the House and Senate.
As with any valid narrative, historical context is the absolute framework or foundation of reality.
The U.S. had been in one of the worst economic periods in its modern history. The Federal Debt Ceiling had steadily increased from $627 billion in 1976 to $935.1 billion in June of 1980. This is an increase of $308.1 billion within the 4 budget years of the Carter presidency.
Also keep in mind the vastly increased social welfare programs and their cost trajectory which began to explode in the mid 1960’s.
The only real exception to the upward debt trajectory took place shortly after the Republican take over of the House and Senate during Clintons first term (after Clinton had just signed the largest budget increase in decades). There is a noticeable (albeit short-lived) downturn in debt trajectory in all of the charts.
Keep in mind both the House and Senate Democrats had overwhelming control for the duration of Reagans presidency.
The first budget to go through the House and Senate in February of 1981 was already officially $985 billion. In the eight years of Reagans presidency, the trajectory (% annual budget increase) remained roughly the same as it had been since 1963 -
http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/federalbudgetprocess/a/US-Debt-Ceiling-History.htm
This is context.
Additionally, Reagan was threatened outright with impeachment on different occasions from O-Neal, who again, had overwhelming Democratic support in both the House and Senate against Reagan. This included at least five significant dust-ups over budget, as Reagan sought to significantly cut spending outside of military, justice, state, and HHS.
“In his two terms as President, Reagan cut the budgets of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (by 40%), the Department of Commerce (by 32%), the Department of Agriculture (by 24%), the Department of Education (by 19%), and the Department of Transportation (by 18%). He never cut the budgets for the Departments of Defense, Health and Human Services, Justice, or State.”
As you know, there was a whole lot of dangerous and bloody “socialist take-over by force junk” going on outside of the US as well.
Another historic example is when O-Neal threatened that if Reagan were to spend a single American dime or put any troops on the ground in Nicaragua (which both Moscow and Havana were attempting to help turn toward a real Marxist Axis), after we had recently taken back the Panama Canal and Grenada from successful Marxist takeovers, there was more than enough support to impeach Reagan, and again, O-Neal threatened impeachment.
Again, it only takes a simple majority in the House to impeach a president.
As well, the media was vicious against Reagan, at the same time threats from O-Neal of impeachment were very real.
There was a legislative war just to get the necessary military budget increases so we could once again strategically function.
Not that Reagan did not desire strongly for a balanced budget -
In reality, the Balanced Budget Amendment remained one of the most desired goals of his presidency.
Reagan also sought to legalize once again both the stamping of gold and silver as money and its ownership. If it were not for Reagan, it is likely most citizens of the U.S. today simply could not own gold and silver coins.
The Gold Bullion Act of 1985 was in reality the end run around what began as a significant attempt by Reagan to turn our monetary system back toward the constitutional requirements for monetary exchange.
As with many other efforts of his time in office, the RNC itself, along with moderate Republicans in conjunction with Democrats in the House and Senate, (which also leveraged several presidential advisors who were not on the same page with Reagan on many issues), turned the entire Act into one of legalization of precious metals (gold and silver) for the purposes of investment rather than one of direct exchangeability of monetary value.
Once our political system mutated and took on the cloak and practices of any failed democracy of the past, it also became a blood sport against conservatism in general.
It has been common or “normal” to stomp all over constitutional judges up for nomination, and to keep Republican nominees from becoming heads of various federal agencies (as when GW Bush was kept from numerous federal judge post, forced to keep the Clinton CIA Director and the Clinton Justice Department leadership for roughly a year (or more) after he was elected.
Reagan experienced the same level of prejudice against conservatism from an overwhelmingly Democrat controlled House and Senate, and mass media.
This is just a rough context of what Reagan was up against.
All references to O-Neal should have been O’Neill.
I obviously need some sleep.
I agree with a lot of what you say there. It’s hard for folks to grasp what the time was like unless you lived it. Other folks did, but have forgotten a lot of it (seemingly).
I do need to correct you with one fact I learned just last night. The Republicans were in control of the Senate from January 1981 to January of 1987. I sure didn’t remember it that way, but it is true.
I looked it up last night.
The house was hard to deal with. There’s no getting around that. I appreciate your input. It does bring back how tough it was.