A little history: Reagan was a deficit spender but the largest part of that deficit spending was his build up of our military with the intention of bankrupting the soviets.
That plan worked.
I believe that domestic spending under REagan actually stayed steady or even declined; it was military spending that climbed, and needed to, after the torpor of the incompetent Carter years. Bush has let BOTH domestic and military spending (primarily due to the Iraq adventure which some neoconservatives absurdly claimed would cost nothing, it would be paid for in its entirety by Iraqi oil) zoom.