Jonathan Chait in this week's TNR:

“Big-government conservatism” may sound like an oxymoron, but Bush has proved that it is not.
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How, though, can a conservative preside over a larger and more intrusive government?
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Conservatives haven’t explained why a moderate liberal like Clinton had an easier time than Bush in resisting popular demand to spend.
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Big government conservatism consists of initiatives that benefit economic elites without using free-market mechanisms.
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Just about all of Bush’s big-government conservative agenda works the same way. Whereas Clinton signed a law phasing out federal crop payments, Bush lavished $180 billion in subsidies for agribusiness. His energy plan, roundly condemned by free-market economists, would have done the same for the energy industry, which after all, wrote much of it.
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By steering government largesse toward their own donors, Republicans could create a self-perpetuating money machine. Industries whose profitability relies on government largesse-and especially those that depend on favors that only Republicans support—will naturally invest some of those profits back into the political party that provides them.
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The distinct contribution of big-government conservatism has been to cement an alliance between the two, to the point where the line between party and private interest has all but disappeared.
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Whatever rules or laws DeLay may have broken were premised on the assumption that there is a distinction between the interests of elected officials and the interests of corporations and their lobbyists. It’s no surprise that he lost sight of that distinction. In his world, it had long ago ceased to exist.