Open season for Republican ambition

Even before the Republican Party hit the jackpot in Tuesday's mid-term elections, George Bush's administration was seen as the most unilateralist, belligerent, unabashedly business-friendly and anti-environmentalist American presidency in recent memory.

Now the Pentagon hawks, the corporate tax-cutters, the gun lobbyists, anti-abortionists and hanging judges are running the show, with only the threat of the occasional congressional filibuster standing in the way of what is likely to be a radical right-wing agenda.

Before Tuesday, President Bush couldn't talk Congress into opening Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas exploration. That's now likely to happen. Before Tuesday, he could not convince the Democrats to extend his $1350bn (£866bn) tax cut beyond its 2010 expiration date.

Now, despite growing budget deficits, that tax cut is likely to be made permanent, with a raft of new corporate tax breaks that will be pushed through at the expense of public services in health and welfare.

While defence and national security are likely to be bolstered, just about every other aspect of government will probably be cut, if not sold off outright. Mr Bush wants to use public money to subsidise private schools; he wants to turn social services over to religious organisations; he has ambitions to privatise the Social Security pension fund.

The Democrats lost control of the Senate, in effect, with the death of Paul Wellstone, the Minnesota liberal, 12 days ago. This means the Republicans will be able to pick up stalled items on the Senate agenda.

Mr Bush's Homeland Security Bill, held up because of questions on the job security of 170,000 employees at the proposed new counter-terrorism agency, will probably go through before Christmas. So too will a number of federal judgeships, which the Demo-crats had held up in an effort to prevent the judiciary from being swamped with corporate lobbyists and abortion opponents.

Before the election, business lobbyists were relishing the prospect of a Republican sweep. Fifteen corporate chief executives met Mr Bush's top economic adviser, Larry Lindsey,to present their wish-list.

It included tax cuts and what is known as tort reform: severely limiting the legal liability of corporations in cases of pollution, industrial accidents and medical malpractice. Mr Bush was a fan of tort reform when he was Governor of Texas, and is likely to try to introduce it on a national level.