Veronique de Rugy of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, published a report some time ago that showed President Bush's increases to both defense and non-defense discretionary spending eclipsed those of even Lyndon B. Johnson during the height of Vietnam and the Great Society. While not citing the study, The Economist's American columnist Lexington rails against the big government conservatism of the Bush administration (sorry, subscription required).

But has [Bush's plan of rebuilding New Orleans with conservative big government policies] any chance of success? The problem is that big-government conservatism is already stumbling under the weight of its own contradictions. The grandiose experiment in the Gulf could be enough to flatten it entirely.

The first contradiction is Mr Bush's insistence on governing like a big-government conservative while taxing like a small-government one. Even before the hurricane hit, federal spending had been growing by 7% this year (on the heels of a 30% hike during Mr Bush's first term). Mr Bush has now promised to spend an additional $200 billion of federal money on rebuilding the Gulf, while ruling out tax increases to pay for it. The money can supposedly come from cuts in other government programmes.

[...]

The second contradiction is that Mr Bush doesn't seem to be very good at running government. His detached management style—setting broad goals and letting underlings implement them—relies on putting good people in place. But he hasn't done that. The problem is not just limited to “Brownie” and the cronies at the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Mr Bush's nominee to run the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, Julie Myers, has little relevant experience other than being related to General Richard Myers and married to Michael Chertoff's chief of staff. The president also has a disastrous weakness for old bureaucrats, who sound efficient but no longer are (step forward Donald Rumsfeld). And the White House now has a sleaze problem: the administration's top federal procurement official, David Safavian, was arrested on Monday in a corruption probe linked to Mr DeLay's lobbying pal, Jack Abramoff.

One would hope that there would be positive tangible results from the massive increases to the federal deficit under President Bush. But as Lexington so eloquently notes, George W. Bush's experiment with big government conservatism is rapidly turning into a disaster.