Remember that in 2008 Obama promised to cut "net government spending," to make government smaller

Remember also that the stimulus was supposed to be temporary?  Will Obama ever return government spending back to where it was when he became president, let alone to where he said it should be when he became president?

And I believe there's further unnecessary spending in government that we can eliminate. But we can't simply cut our way to prosperity. Cutting spending has to go hand in hand with further reforms to our tax code so that the wealthiest corporations and individual can take advantage of loopholes and deductions that aren't available to most Americans and we can't keep cutting things like basic research and new technology and still expect to succeed in the 21st century economy. So we're going to have to continue to move forward in deficit reduction but we have to do it in a balanced way, making sure that we are growing, even as we get a handle on our spending. . . .