Liberal economists like Paul Krugman have always tried to sell the story that conservative politicians have a very sinister agenda: to intentionally erode the government's fiscal position to such an extent that social welfare/entitlement programs would have to be eliminated in order to reconcile the national budget. Most recently, Krugman claims that President Reagan's tax-cutting program was the mechanism through which which he attempted to accomplish this evil goal. That's not how Krugman and others portrayed Reagan's reputed "strategy" at the time. Back then, liberal economists insisted that Reagan's spending on military and national security initiatives (remember the Star Wars debate?) was secretly designed to take so much money out of the budget that there would be no choice but to eliminate welfare and other entitlements.
A couple funny things happened, though. Instead of the arms race bankrupting the U.S. economy, it bankrupted the Soviet economy. It was their government that was "fundamentally transformed" by Reagan's military spending, not ours. Also, if it had been Reagan's intention to ruin the nation's balance sheet by cutting taxes, he failed miserably. Revenues went up. Does anyone, even Krugman, really believe that President Reagan was disappointed in that result?
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