Reaganomics 

Reagan may have genuinely hoped to shrink the federal government, but his central foreign initiative had the opposite effect. Although Cold War tensions had been chilled by Jimmy Carter's focus on international human rights, Reagan's rhetoric turned up the heat, as he pronounced the Soviet Union "the focus of evil in the modern world." Central to his belligerent stance was his call for a "Strategic Defense Initiative", often referred to by critics as "Star Wars", weapons capable of shooting down incoming missiles from the "evil empire". Research and development costs of the program opened the treasury's floodgates for defense contractors, confirming President Eisenhower's farewell warning about the dangers of a "military-industrial complex". Reagan's pledge to cut government spending looked hollow in the face of these budget-busting expenditures.
Source: CNN: "Crossfire".