Add to this temporary spending programs. GWBush's last year added ~$1 trillion in "emergency" spending, growing federal spending by an astounding ~50%, and SOMEHOW four years later it's turned into entitlements and the like, part of the permanent spending baseline.
(This is the same baseline-based math which calls a reduction in the rate of spending growth some sort or another of a "devastating cut", naturally, though you'll see more ostentatious examples of this rhetoric with California's recent education-policy games than you will at the national level.)
Well, there seems to be universal agreement that the "temporary" tax cuts for the non-rich should be made permanent. With which I disagree; if we want to have an expensive welfare state and police the world, we should have the honesty to pay for it.
(This is the same baseline-based math which calls a reduction in the rate of spending growth some sort or another of a "devastating cut", naturally, though you'll see more ostentatious examples of this rhetoric with California's recent education-policy games than you will at the national level.)