It's important to distinguish between stimulus spending (which consists of typically one-off measures to fight recessions) and the regular payouts that the gove

It's important to distinguish between stimulus spending (which consists of typically one-off measures to fight recessions) and the regular payouts that the government makes every year. All deficit spending last year consisted of the latter. In bad times, the these payouts naturally/automatically increase. For example, let's take the SNAP (food stamp program) - when the recession hit, more people lost their jobs and had to apply for food stamps. So even if the government didn't change the requirements for applying for SNAP, the SNAP program had to spend more. The narrative that Obama chose to spend more on food stamps because he has an affinity for spending is misleading. If anything, he (and Congress) chose not to cut the SNAP program. Of course, SNAP is a bad example to begin with, because it doesn't make up that much of the federal budget. Medicare, on the other hand, does, and its costs are rising because health care costs in general are rising. Medicare's costs to the government are rising no faster than private health insurance companies' costs to individuals.