Republicans grow government. Facts don't have a party or a side. They're just facts.
From the chart, you cited it appears that ALL Presidents, FDR on, grew government to some extent. FDR and Obama might have appeared to reduce government but they only reduced it from the huge growth they made initially.
What would be a more telling chart or indication would be to contrast the amount of Government size compared to the amount of money that the Government brought in, to pay for itself, also mixing in with that the amount contributed per family (tax rate). In other words, Government growth has been steadily increasing all along but Government has had times when it was paid for and the Debt wasn't being increased, and there were very few years if any that this happened. I believe the Clinton years was the last time.
Just look at the Debt's expansion and huge growth over the last decades. Bush might argue that the Iraq war and post 911 military action caused a large amount of his debt growth but LBJ and Nixon had the Vietnam war and Bush(s) also had the Iraq conflicts. The National Debt really started taking off under Reagan.
The above chart though is even more telling and closer to what I was wanting to see and from it, to me, the most glaring things that indicate problems to the economy was World War II cost which could be understood as the Nation converted to a war footing and produced all the goods needed for World War II for our nation as well as supplying Russia and England with materials. The really telling part of the graph though is the Obama years and how much more of a rise there was then. From when Obama took office it skyrocketed compared to other Presidents and times. Obama's unbounded growth was only matched by times of war or the Great Depression. There is a great spike in 1917 when the United States Joined World War I and again in 1930 or so at the Great Depression followed by 1941 and the US entry into World War II. Korea and Vietnam didn't make a dent and other periods such as under Reagan saw a gentle rise but in 2008 when Obama took over it was like another World War or Great Depression.
The other interesting thing I observed from the graphs is how the American public has selected to vote in Democrat and Republicans ever so often. I think to change hoping that one party will actually turn things around or maybe they just get tired of the party in charge. I might also say, though, while the Clinton years looked good it was ONLY after the Republican takeover of Congress and the fulfilling of the "Contract with America" that a Balanced budget was achieved. It wasn't something Clinton came up with but rather that he went along with the Republican Congress and didn't stop it. They worked together. Sadly times where Republicans and Democrats working together are few and far between. Although I know there are exceptions, I believe things work better for the American citizens and people when politicians on both sides find common ground and work together rather than being adversarial and blocking each other.
Today the Democrats are so spot focused on making Illegal Immigrants legal and being antagonistic toward Trump that they are about to isolate themselves from many of their base voters. Black Americans are seeing historic unemployment and historic employment growth under Trump and at the same time are seeing Democrats backing the very people that are taking jobs away from Americans, both Black, White, and Hispanic Americans. Even Hispanic Americans who are legal are not in favor of the Illegals taking their jobs and reducing their wages. The Democratic party is (my opinion) about to anger some of it's historic core base voters in their recent focus on Illegals. Time will only tell if that is true.
