Maybe you don't understand that money can only be alloted by the Congress. All the president can do is veto a spending bill and if he doesn't have enough of a majority to stop an over-ride, the bill passes. And, of course, he requested every growing amounts to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but even with the dreaded Senior RX bill, his deficits were a fraction of other presidents compared to GDP.
So, yes, he was a fiscal conservative who had a DotCom bubble burst, a Wall Street meltdown and a War on Terror...and even with that he kept his promise to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term. If Freddie and Fanny hadn't blown up at exactly the right time, Obama would still be a junior Senator and everyone would be happily trashing McCain.
If there was a war against our nation that he was fighting, why were our borders left wide open?