Could this be a lagging indicator, as in programmes take a while to setup and the budgetary pressure falls into the next term?

You really don't want to accept that our deficit expansion has been overwhelmingly due to Republican largesse, do you?

Democrats aren't fiscal conservatives, but the last time they were able to expand the deficit in pursuit of social spending was LBJ. Deficit expansion during my lifetime has been overwhelmingly driven by regressive tax cuts, regressive bailouts, and wars in the middle east.