Many Republicans in Congress are appalled at President Bush’s handling of Iraq, Supreme Court appointments and Hurricane Katrina. They are jittery about the effects on their own electoral chances.

So far, this has liberated them mainly to feud with each other. But it has suddenly put within reach changes in policy which had seemed taboo.

This week, some Republicans in the House of Representatives will draw up a list of up to $50 billion (£28 million) of cuts in next year’s budget. Their target is programmes that have until now been sacrosanct — healthcare for the poor, food stamps and farm support.

With mid-term elections in the House and Senate just over a year from now, that is risky, even though Democrats face a tough battle to regain a majority in either house. Republican leaders have resisted until now. But this week’s moves mark a rebellion by conservatives worried at the President’s expensive interpretation of Republicanism.

For the five years of Bush’s presidency, a large bloc of Republicans in Congress has been uneasy about his high-spending policies. Bush predicted that his huge tax cuts would restrain spending; they didn’t.

The federal budget has gone up by a third to $2.47 trillion since he came to power. This summer’s $286 billion Transportation Bill was an exercise in indulgence, including 6,371 special favours, known as “pork” and worth $24 billion. A surplus has turned into a record deficit.

Fiscal conservatives, who believe that Republicans should pursue small government and balanced budgets, have been appalled. But until now, they have not been in a strong position.

The unpopularity of Newt Gingrich’s “Republican Revolution” in 1994, with its plans to slash the size of government, has made budget-cutting taboo.

So why now? The spark for the budget rebellion came from Hurricane Katrina. Bush offered tens of billions of dollars in aid, without saying how he would pay for it.

At first, the House Majority Leader Tom DeLay backed Bush. He challenged House Republicans to find cuts after so many years of “lean” and “pared-down” government.

Well, they called his bluff, and named them. They saw it as a chance to bounce through cuts in social programmes they had long wanted to make. At the same time, DeLay was removed brutally, if temporarily, from the stage by criminal indictments on charges of misuse of electoral funds. He may yet be back; what matters is that, for now, he is gone.

At present, the budget rebellion is confined to a largeish minority who have always called themselves fiscal conservatives. That is a long way from saying that these cuts will actually be made in the run-up to the mid-terms. Many other Republicans are nervous of earning again the label of the party that cuts social programmes.

But even those who are less exercised about the deficits have been rattled by recent Bush decisions. They can see how support for Iraq is dropping. Many in Congress who supported the war are appalled by the execution of it.

And Harriet Miers? Don’t get them started. The incredulity of the conservative intelligentsia thrusts itself into conversations on any subject.

The question is whether those outside the capital will feel as strongly — or might even warm to her.

Republicans on Capitol Hill are displaying all the panicky incoherence of those used to iron leadership and now suffering its absence. But they do show a common conviction that they now need to save themselves — even if they cannot agree with each other on how that should be done.

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