What Are The Key Features Behind This Change Of Roaring Eighties?

The key features behind this change were the following:
1. The share of federal revenues in gross domestic product declined over this period. And this was true even though the share of social security taxes on payrolls increased. The income tax reductions of the early 1980s clearly contribute to the growing deficit.
2. Expenditures rose over the period, but by only 1.2 percent of gross domestic product. This increase was less than the average decadal rise over the prior half century.

3. The major unplanned increases in the budget were in interest payments and in health care, which together rose by 2.7 percent of gross domestic product. Each of these poses stubborn long-term problems of control: Interest payments are no discretionary and can be reduced only by lowering either interest rates or the size of the government debt. Health care expenditures are insulated from the normal play of supply and demand in the marketplace.      

4. Public concern over the high deficits led to a series of controversial deficit reduction measures, the most important being the 1990 and 1993 budget acts of the Bush and Clinton administrations.