Fear of a Unified Government.

• Author: Lachel, Darrel
• Position: Letter to the editor

Veronique de Rugy tells us that Ronald Reagan shows up as one of the big presidential spenders ("Fear of a Unified Government," November). She makes no distinction between budgets submitted by the president to Congress and budgets created and passed by Congress. The budgets submitted by Reagan were consistently smaller than budgets reported out by the Democratic Congress. In fact, I recall seeing Majority Leader Tip O'Neill on television standing on the steps of the U.S. Capitol and boasting to reporters that Reagan's budget would be dead on arrival when it reached Congress.

Congress has far more control over the budget than the president. Yet revisionist historians continue to tag presidents with all of the budgets' excesses and shortcomings, regardless of congressional action.

Darrel Lachel

La Mesa, CA

Veronique de Rugy replies: While I agree that Congress has a great deal of control over the budget process, it is hard to argue that it "has far more control over the budget than the president." Reagan...