The worst offenders are the Republicans in Congress. They had no problem denying much of the spending increases Clinton wanted. Their fiscal conservativism even put the government into surplus.
But put a Republican in the White House, and suddenly congressional Republicans have never met a spending bill they didn't like. Go figure.
The government was never in an actual surplus. Clinton did a bond trading scheme (screwing his successor with much higher interest rates), charged the newly financed debt as income, double entered borrowing from social security into the general fund as income, and more.
I wondered how Bush was going to handle it and after three years, it looks like 'silently.'