Just days after Congress averted a much-discussed debt limit crisis that some feared would produce a market crash and an economic catastrophe, older fears of a “double-dip” recession have quickly reemerged. So what, if anything, can our gridlocked political system, already ensnared in the complex deficit-reduction doomsday machine created by the August 1 deal, do to head off or mitigate another crisis?

Some observers are predicting that an aroused public or chastened politicians will suddenly rediscover the merits of good old-fashioned Keynesian fiscal stimulus measures. Here’s what business writer John Cassidy predicted in Fortune even before the debt limit deal was enacted:

With the economic picture darkening daily, the burden of preventing another slump is falling on the White House and Congress. The Fed, which has just finished its second dose of quantitative easing , seems determined to sit on its hands. Before long, incumbents in both parties will start to panic about next year’s election. Debates about the size of the federal government will take a back seat to getting reelected, and the result will be more tax cuts and spending increases.

But that suggestion seems to assume Republicans have any vested interest in changing their minds on the efficacy of fiscal stimulus and, moreover, can escape the logic of their recent collective decision to simultaneously demand lower taxes and reduced debts and deficits. Meanwhile, with Democrats huddled around their own sacred cow of protecting entitlement programs at all costs, don’t expect them to make an impassioned case for immediate increases in discretionary spending either.

In the short-term, the Obama administration is already dusting off mildly stimulative initiatives that didn’t make the cut in the debt limit negotiations, notably an extension of the payroll tax relief and unemployment insurance extensions enacted as part of the deal to extend the Bush tax cuts last December. The president is also showing signs he will return to the small-bore “winning the future” investment agenda he talked about in his State of the Union Address.

When it comes to gaining Republican support, is the apparent popular rejection of Keynesianism enough to make conspicuous Hooverism acceptable? Don’t even non-Keynesians accept that drastic domestic spending cuts tend to directly boost unemployment, even if you deny claims of its other economic effects? Maybe so, but conservatives are so entrenched in the conviction that public-sector jobs aren’t “real,” and so focused on destroying public-sector unionism as a critical political asset for Democrats, that they’re likely willing to run the risk of boosting short-term unemployment. As recently as Tuesday, the GOP was getting lathered up to go after deeper cuts in FY 2012 domestic appropriations. And while progressive claims that Republicans are deliberately trying to sabotage the economy are perhaps unfair, there’s no question they realize the president and his party will get the bulk of the blame in 2012 for perpetually bad economic conditions.