Given that it is Congress that approves appropriations, pretty amazing that the Republicans in Congress have made no effort to control spending.
For some inexplicable reason, GWB has refused to wield the executive's most powerful tool in determining the budgets: The Presidential Veto. For decades that's how presidents have pushed Congress to enact their spending plans, and for whatever reason GWB refuses to do so.
Heck, it's gotten to where a lot of people seem to forget the veto even exists. Reagan used the veto 78 times, mostly in order to restrain spending.