It is true that Reagan campaigned against Carter's 'profligate' spending. But then it's also a fact that Carter (2.6% in 1980) had reduced Ford's deficit (4.1% in 1976) and then Reagan's deficit (5.9% in 1983) greatly increased Carter's. Reagan's Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney summarized the Reagan governing philosophy as deficits don't matter.

> But Anderson also pulled votes from more-or-less Republicans who didn't believe Reagan's assertion that cutting taxes and increasing spending would narrow the deficit.

When Reagan's own people said his economics were bullshit…

> Following Reagan's election, the "trickle-down" reached wide circulation with the publication of "The Education of David Stockman" a December 1981 interview of Reagan's incoming Office of Management and Budget director David Stockman, in the magazine Atlantic Monthly. In the interview, Stockman expressed doubts about supply side economics, telling journalist William Greider that the Kemp–Roth Tax Cut was a way to rebrand a tax cut for the top income bracket to make it easier to pass into law.[25] Stockman said that "It's kind of hard to sell 'trickle down,' so the supply-side formula was the only way to get a tax policy that was really 'trickle down.' Supply-side is 'trickle-down' theory."[25][26][27]

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics#Reagan_...

Describes my father who voted for Anderson. He didn’t trust Reagan at all