The Texan president was returned to office in a landslide year for his party, with gains made in both houses of Congress. An ambitious legislative agenda was proposed that aimed to forever solidify an ideological vision begun three decades before by legendary father figures for the party. But somewhere in the year after that high water mark a backlash began quietly brewing among the electorate as unexpected domestic crises threatened to over-extend an administration already committed to an increasingly unpopular and open-ended foreign war. The president who relied on his personal charm as a key element of his influence steadfastly refused to choose between the competing priorities of guns and butter, arguing that both could be achieved if approached with characteristic American optimism. Consequently, a credibility gap began to emerge. Even in a time of modest economic expansion fueled by previous tax cuts, the nation’s long-term fiscal health was threatened by spending more than we were taking in, all in the name of supporting a big-hearted big government vision. A tough second term was the result, with the president’s and congress’s poll numbers falling, as faith in the core competence of the government was questioned. The honeymoon was over and the hangover had just begun.

The parallels between Lyndon Johnson and George W. Bush have always been striking, if subtle. Back on Election Day 2004, I argued in these pages that the voters’ choice was between a Johnson Republican and a Nixon Democrat. Like Johnson, Bush emerged from the world of Texas politics, “with its backslapping ease, backroom deals, and frontier optimism.” Blessed with instinctive emotional intelligence, both men loved the energy of retail politics more than the stifling confines of the Washington establishment they simultaneously ruled over and resented. “Beneath their apparently boundless confidence,” I wrote, “both men are surprisingly thin-skinned about criticism – and this led their administrations to be seen as somewhat insular and unwilling to change course when confronted with difficult new information.”

Much has been made of President Bush’s remarks from New Orleans two weeks after the impact of Hurricane Katrina, in which he said, “As all of us saw on television, there’s also some deep, persistent poverty in this region, as well. That poverty has roots in a history of racial discrimination, which cut off generations from the opportunity of America. We have a duty to confront this poverty with bold action. So let us restore all that we have cherished from yesterday, and let us rise above the legacy of inequality.” Some conservatives howled that the president’s sentiments and concurrent financial commitment to rebuild the region amounted to a resuscitation of the Great Society. At the same time, some liberals, such as leading Democratic strategist and Gore campaign manager Donna Brazile, pledged their newfound loyalty to the president.

Now, with a potentially more serious hurricane bearing down on Texas, the need for government action and intervention may be even greater, as the whole Gulf Region could need rebuilding, including portions of Houston, the nation’s fourth largest city, where the president’s parents live.

In the face of these massive new domestic commitments, there has been little serious conversation in Washington about how we intend to pay for all of this government action. Congress has already approved $62 billion to help victims of Hurricane Katrina. But despite the president’s assurance that all necessary new spending will be paid for not with tax-hikes but spending cuts, the House majority leader, Tom Delay, a Republican whose home district is in Hurricane Rita’s path, told reporters that there was little spending left to cut, saying that “after 11 years of Republican majority, we’ve pared it down pretty good.”

In fact, government spending has gone up dramatically during the Bush years. Pork barrel projects lard this Congress at levels unseen during the Clinton years of divided government – the 2005 highway bill had more than three times the number of absurd appropriations compared to its 1998 counterpart. The Republican Congress has been trying to secure its majority with irresponsible tax-payer-subsidized giveaways, as the Democrats did a generation before. The hypocrisy of Congress is compounded by the administration’s actions: The Wall Street Journal has detailed that non-defense discretionary spending during President Bush’s first three years in office jumped 8.2% – compared to a 2.5% increase under his Democratic predecessor, Bill Clinton – exceeding even the supposed high water mark of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society government spending.

This is unsustainable. Even before the hurricane, Mr. Bush was already outspending Lyndon Johnson on an inflation-adjusted dollar-for-dollar basis, with less to show for it at home. Now with massive humanitarian action required and deficits stretching as far as the eye can see, we see the underlying fiscal impact of what some supporters once breathlessly called “big government conservatism” – Republicans have essentially surrendered their traditional claim to be the party of fiscal responsibility.

Ideological beliefs cannot change the laws of economic gravity – government has to ultimately be able to pay for what it spends, and to ignore that obligation is to commit a generational betrayal. What Mr. Bush’s father once famously called “voodoo economics” might just have found its downfall in the swamps of the Big Easy.

jpavlon@nysun.com