In the days leading up to Ronald Reagan's first inauguration as president in January 1981, hundreds of private and corporate jet planes descended on Washington from all over the country. Waiting their turn to land, they circled the capital like condors eager to get on with the business of feeding on the carcass of the liberal Democratic coalition. The coalition was indeed dead. What life had remained in it by the mid-seventies ended during the disastrous Democratic administration of Jimmy Carter. Meanwhile, what life had remained for moderate Republicans in their own party also had died with the 1976 defeat of the Gerald Ford–Robert Dole ticket. The nomination of Ronald Reagan for president in 1980 represented the full-blown capture of Abraham Lincoln's party by what used to be called “the extreme right wing.” His election confirmed the ascendancy of conservatism in America. Joy in the event among members of the right-wing coalition seemed unbounded.

In the midst of an economy that featured double-digit inflation combined with nearly double-digit unemployment, Ronald Reagan put on a spectacle of imperial wealth unparalleled in the history of presidential inaugurations. So many of the rich and powerful from American business arrived by private jets to celebrate his victory that Washington National Airport (renamed “Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport” in 1998) could not accommodate all of them. Many of those symbols of corporate and personal wealth had to take off again after delivering their owners to the ground. The cost of renting limousines, another symbol of wealth and privilege, soared to $2,000 per day – when eager takers could find any not already leased.

The Reagan inaugural was the costliest in the country's history.