A year or so ago, I actually did up a spreadsheet on who actually spent what over the past 50 years and the results are actually what you'd expect. Spending grew least in the years when Congress was deadlocked, or when the Congress was opposed to the President.

Thus, the years when "Clinton balanced the budget" we see that Clinton was in the Whitehouse but the Republicans controlled Congress. Once Bush was in the Whitehouse, though, spending surged. Similarly, once the Dems took Congress back from the Republicans, spending growth slowed - then pretty much stopped once the Republicans controlled one house and the Dems controlled the other.

So, the upshot is that blaming Obama for a huge spending increase is pretty much bullshit - but it's also bullshit to give him credit for controlling spending - he didn't do that, the Tea Party did by making it impossible to get spending bills passed.