http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110007351<snip>
The loudest warning was sounded in November, 2003. At the behest of the White House, Mr. Hastert and then-Majority Leader DeLay held a floor vote open for three hours early one morning while they browbeat GOP members to pass a prescription drug benefit that was the largest expansion of an entitlement program since LBJ's Great Society. "It was a watershed event, the moment when Republicans who stood for limited government realized they were the enemy of their own leadership," Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma told me.
Since then the GOP's love affair with big government has intensified. This summer Congress passed a $286 billion highway bill stuffed with 6,373 pork-barrel projects inserted by individual members, many so marginal they have drawn national ridicule. All this was abetted or even led by a Bush White House that has yet to veto a single bill and whose officials have apparently adapted the old New Deal slogan "tax and tax, and spend and spend, and elect and elect" into merely "spend and spend."
The ouster of Tom DeLay last week came over a dubious Texas indictment on campaign finance violations. But he was in hot water with the conservative base before that for a series of bizarre statements opposing budget cuts to pay for the costs of Hurricane Katrina relief.
He first claimed with a straight face that the GOP Congress had "pared
down pretty good; I am ready to declare ongoing victory." He then dismissed calls for delaying the start of the prescription drug benefit for a year by claiming it was designed to save money in the long run. "Postponing a reform that is going to implement fiscal restraint doesn't make a whole lot of sense," he lectured fellow members. Finally, he reacted to news that Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi would give up some specific transportation projects in her San Francisco district to help pay for Katrina by defending the projects in his own district. "The highway bill is an important part of building our economy," he told reporters. Mr. DeLay seemed to be channeling Richard Nixon, another big spender, who once foolishly claimed, "We are all Keynesians now."
Talk like that has demoralized much of the Republican base. With nearly all Democrats and two-thirds of independents reacting negatively to the Bush presidency, Republicans need to keep GOP voters in the fold. But only 78% of Republicans express approval of Mr. Bush, down from well over 90% at the time of his re-election. With only 32% of Americans believing that the country is headed in the right direction and only 33% approving of the job Congress is doing, the GOP has reason to worry. "By an eight-point margin, voters are now more likely to call themselves Democrats than Republicans; there was no gap in self-identification a year ago," notes political handicapper Charlie Cook.
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