Indeed. But it was probably their intent to create a deficit and then to use that to shrink the government and its welfare schemes. That is, if lowering taxes didn't improve growth (the usual Republican supply side theory).
Fact is, the supply side theory has never worked as advertised. It almost always generates deficits. It did under Reagan. It did under Bush Junior (and was the poisonous inheritance of Obama). I presume their opinion leaders know this. So the underlying aim is to shrink government - meaning to remove support from those they presumably consider lazy while increasing the size of the military and starting wars.
There are also those who want to balance the budget. But in a growing economy with sustainable levels of debt, a budget is in balance when the budget is slightly negative, weirdly enough. And across a business cycle, there are times when deepening the debt makes sense - as in the aftermath of 2008. So debt balancing sounds more sensible than it is.
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