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Bush and the Republicans are pro political corruption, not "pro market" -- and even The New Republic's Jonathan Chait gets it:

The way you tell the difference between a free-marketer and a servant of business is how he behaves when the interests of the two diverge. And all the evidence, including the Medicare and energy bills, points to the conclusion that Bush is happy to throw free-market conservatism out the window when business interests so desire.

Consider, for instance, the $180 billion farm bill signed by Bush in 2002. The notion that taxpayers should subsidize farmers rather than, say, butchers or t- shirt salesmen represents the most archaic and unjustifiable kind of government intervention. But farmers have lots of clout in Washington, in part because they're relatively affluent (farm households earn more on average than non-farm households) but mainly due to the disproportionate representation of rural states in the Senate and electoral college. In the course of showering federal largesse upon farmers a year ago, some senators tried to mitigate their shame slightly by limiting payments to $275,000 per farmer. Republicans removed this modest measure ...

A cornerstone of Bush's domestic policy is his aptitude for economic giveaways that are supported by neither liberals nor true conservatives--indeed, that are supported only by those who profit from them monetarily or politically. Take the energy bill, which lavished subsidies upon favored industries ...

Last year, the Associated Press conducted a remarkable study showing how federal spending patterns had changed since the GOP took over Congress in 1995. Republicans did not shrink federal spending, it found, they merely transferred it, from poorer Democratic districts to wealthier Republican ones. This, the A.P. reported, "translates into more business loans and farm subsidies, and fewer public housing grants and food stamps." In 1995, Democratic districts received an average of $35 million more in federal largesse than Republican districts, which seems roughly fair given that Democratic districts have more people in need of government aid. By 2001, the gap had not only reversed, it had increased nearly twentyfold, with GOP districts receiving an average of $612 million more than Democratic ones.