When prices started to rise, "the administration was asleep at the wheel," Representative Dick Armey of Texas, the House majority leader, said this week.
With the risk of another recession rising, the administration's main response thus far has been to propose making permanent supposedly temporary tax cuts that were passed last year, and possibly accelerating them.
With college costs, student debt and federal student loan defaults continuing to rise, the administration has billed its effort to clean up the for-profit college sector as one of its signature initiatives to protect middle-class families and younger Americans.
The issue had also risen within the administration, which, as Dr. Land put it, "has a lot more evangelicals in it, and traditional Catholics," than previous administrations.
With the death toll of illegal Mexican immigrants rising, the Bush administration is faced with a central conflict: How to create more humane conditions at the border while increasing enforcement with more guards and patrols.
As the civilian toll rose, however, the administration pressed for a NATO bombing campaign.
At the time, criticism was rising that the administration was not doing enough to respond to AIDS.
Other technocrats have already begun to rise within the administration, such as the Environmental Protection Agency's Andrew Wheeler.
At home, concern about civil liberties is rising, and the administration's seizure of more powers has alarmed even some of its own supporters.
He rose through the administration of British Palestine to be official gatekeeper, managing the immigration of desperate Jews in flight from persecution.
