ok chrissypoo, how m,any republicans voted against it?Start with Reagan's 1981 budget, which passed the House on a 253-176 vote. It was regarded as a stunning feat, given that Democrats owned a 244-191 majority in the chamber. Sixty-five Democrats ended up crossing over to support the Reagan budget, with no Republican defections the other way.
This is regarded as perhaps the most vivid display of a presidential mandate at work in the modern era. There's something to this claim. As the vote neared and O'Neill frantically tried to keep his caucus united, Reagan, elected in a 44-state landslide and only a few weeks removed from an assassination attempt that only bolstered his popularity, appealed to the public in a national television address. O'Neill didn't stand a chance.
"They say they're voting for it because they're afraid," was how Connecticut Representative Toby Moffett explained the defections.
But look closer. Forty-four of those 65 Democrats were conservatives, generally from the South, who today would simply be Republicans (just as the liberal Yankee Republicans of that era are now Democrats). Today's clear and sharp ideological divide between the parties was still taking shape. By current standards, Reagan's popularity was only good enough for about 20 true crossover votes, if that. Otherwise, everyone stuck to the script.
Stop the Presses: Republican Lawmakers Oppose Democratic President | The New York Observer