George W. Bush has come full circle. He started his public career as the beneficiary of a government bailout, and he ends it as the benefactor of another a thousand times it size.

George W. Bush, private citizen, purchased a financially shaky business firm, called the Texas Rangers, in 1989. Using his political connections, he was able to convince taxpayers to fund a new stadium. This taxpayer-funded bailout boosted the value of Bush's investment from $800,000 to $15 million in nine short years. Not bad for government (funded) work.

I've been a Bush supporter over the past eight years. Yes, I was a Steve Forbes supporter during the primary, but after Bush won the nomination, I set aside the stadium corporate welfare and Papa Bush's tax hike apostasy and gave the nominee the benefit of the doubt.

The results were always mixed. Bush caved to the liberals in 2001, abandoning the supply-side tax cuts he had promised during the campaign. Over the years, Bush caved on Sarbanes-Oxley, McCain-Feingold and Medicaid drug benefits. He caved on pork barrel spending. He threw Cheney under the (natural gas powered) bus and caved on fuel-efficiency mandates and alternate energy. Other than the supply-side tax cuts of 2003--which reportedly originated in Cheney's office--Bush has caved on virtually every domestic economic issue on which he was pressured.

The bailouts are just the latest examples.

Instead of heeding the advice of men like Larry Kudlow, Steve Forbes and Brian Wesbury, the administration simply refused to recognize the dangers which regulations such as "fair value accounting" posed to credit markets. Many of us warned the White House repeatedly about the dangers of overreaction, overregulation and a "mortgage Sarbox" in response to the credit disruptions. Instead of eliminating the regulatory burdens which were strangling the banking sector, the administration concocted an enormous transfer of money from us to the banks.

Privately, some of us warned them that they money would not work without deregulation; privately, they assured many of us that they were aware of the problems. They got their money, and have done none of the things which they needed to do to erase the financial burdens government tinkering had imposed.

Ditto for "Bailout II: The Rise of the Autos." I got off the phone with the White House minutes before writing this article. They are no more teachable this morning than they were last summer. Instead of relaxing the fuel-efficiency mandates that have wreaked havoc on the industry, they are reaffirming them. Perhaps it seemed like a good idea last year for Bush to make SUVs more expensive to make, but it hardly looks that way now. At the top of their non-negotiable list are prohibitions against corporate jets and limits on CEO pay. Yes, that's what we need--stupider CEOs standing in long lines at airports rather than running their companies. Continued...