...or do they feel forced into it. When you're trying to get votes and gain clout to follow other marginally or unpopular policies a short term way to do that is to slather money onto people and not be responsible for pulling money from people. Also when there is a problem a president or member of congress has a limited number of options in what they can practically do, setting up a new governement something or throwing money at the problem are pretty much their only direct short term options when the public is clamoring for something.

It seems like this is where a lot of W's extra government spending comes from.