Ronald Reagan put up with the deficit for two reasons. One, he was too lazy and fearful to actually cut the social programs (welfare, food stamps, Social Security) he railed against for years. (It would have taken too much effort with no eight week summer vacations, all his political capital and in the end he wanted in the to be known as a nice guy which to most Americans he is.) Two, Reagan created and tolerated massive deficits figuring he would eventually bankrupt the government and achieve the same goals after he was safely retired (See George Bush/David Stockman "Voodoo Economics" 1979-1982)
So now we have overpriced and militarily obsolete (and in some cases dysfunctional) weapons systems such as the B-1 and B-2 while the our air-traffic controllers (Whose union was broken by Reagan) must guide multi-million dollar civilian aircraft with equipment so old that compared to it your own desktop PC is a virtual supercomputer.
This budget shutdown should have never happened. But after the Republicans had sabotaged the Clinton insurance reforms, (It was about health insurance payments not micro-managed medical care you ignorant peons!) they decided to keep it secret until the last possible minute while minimizing and in some cases preventing debate! And so the Republicans took their time all summer and leisurely massaged the sensibilities of armed White Supremacist and Nazis just to show what nice "good o' boys they were, just like the militias' Klan grandfathers. And now without the necessary time for legislative debate and compromise we have government shutdown while my parents are in a total financial bind because they can't get their insurance checks.
Speaking of medical insurance care now we have HMOs that are punishing doctors who attempt to give their patients quality medical care. Midwives are not covered and newly born babies (and their Moms) are thrown out their hospital prematurely to save a few bucks. Moreover, the HMOs are restricting the right of the physician to confide in their patients about the care they can't give them because it will cost them a few lucrative and excessive profits. All because some CEO wants to make a few million on stock options!
The rapid advent of technological and scientific change has cause some segments of society to embrace fundamentalism and the past. Hate speech, repeated again and again, becomes a mantra that the someone from the great unwashed will act upon. In Israel, a religious law acted on extremist hate speech shot Rabin in the back. Amir doesn't live in this century (or even the last). A science technology student would have never assassinated Rabin because such a person is prepared for (and in some cases all ready lives) in the 21th century and knows the exact borders are irrelevant in leiu of the powerful missiles that sleep spreading dreams of their coming for thousands of miles! (See Iraqi Scuds 1991)
After hundreds of hours of listening to talk radio, a Rush Limbaugh ditto head comes to Washington from Denver and attacks the White House with an assault weapon. Abortion clinics are burned, doctors and receptionists are shot. Gay people are demonized (As they were in 1930s Nazi Germany) by the Christian Coalition wing of the G.O.P. (God's Own Party) and are assaulted and discriminated against. After years of anti-government rhetoric a small White group vaporizes a downtown govt. office building and promptly the local Okies (Due to years of Republican propaganda) begin taunting and attacking Arab-Americans. (In one case causing the spontaneous abortion of a fetus)
Republicans who keep giving hate comfort to the toy soldier societies should look to Yugoslavia where the Militias have gotten their way. There the Arkan militias and their Croatian Ustashi counterparts have imprisoned, raped, tortured and killed thousand of hapless civilians in a drunken frenzy are now storing and destroying the bodies at guarded locations in zones American NATO troops now "control", but refuse to stop because "some soldier might get hurt."
The NRA (National Republican Army) rails in pagan fashion against govt. conspiracies to take away their iron phalluses (Holy Bobbit!) and tax their sacred sperm (Bullets) while their followers eat meat and milk loaded with excessive hormones and antibiotics and drink water contaminated damaging pesticides, metals, and chemicals due to the hobbling of the EPA.
Meanwhile an out of control unaccountable CIA tolerates incompetence, drunkenness, misogyny, and lack of financial oversight, while funding Islamic fundamentalists in Pakistan. One of which comes to America on a CIA passport, purchases an assault weapon in Virginia with no background check and proceeds to kill employees in their cars outside CIA Headquarters.
Meanwhile, in New York State, the local Republican Party has taken a page from the politics of North Korea by not allowing any competing Republican to compete with the holy sanctification of Chairman Bob Dole. All the while our governor eliminates restrictions against fishing for dioxin contaminated fish on the Upper Hudson in the name deregulation so some poor unknowing unemployed bloke can bring his catch home to his pregnant wife who six month later hatches a three fingered mutant.