The Nation - News from Dec. 30, 1986

Former Budget Director David A. Stockman, accusing President Reagan of continuing to wage a “phony war against spending,” contends that Reagan will have left a $1.5-trillion legacy of red ink by the end of his second term. “The next President will inherit a publicly held federal debt nearly triple that accumulated by all of Ronald Reagan’s 39 predecessors,” Stockman asserts in a new chapter he has written for the paperback edition of his book, “The Triumph of Politics.” The debt already is double the $1 trillion it was when Reagan took office in 1981. To ease the deficit, Stockman urges drastic cutbacks in the $200 billion of social programs, including reserving Medicare benefits only for the nation’s poorest.