Deep-state doesn't just mean conspiratorial "them/they". It means all of the bureaucratic individuals that haunt the halls of government between administrations and Congressional turnover. They drive policy. They are around for years. It's these unimaginative individuals that hold us back.

Republicans wanted a payback. That's fine. Every colonial backer wants that. The argument could have been fusion. We'd extract helium on the moon. We'd also have the ability for meta-materials fabrication there given the weaker gravity. All of this could have been wrapped up in the Republican's favorite spending bucket: war readiness. Few argued for that at the time.

The Democrats did what you said, tried to keep their plantations populated through bread and circuses. They lacked the ability to see how colonization would provide jobs and reduce crime by allowing people that don't fit well in society an outlet like the US had with its Western frontier.

At this point the US is too indebted to support such a program, at least at a governmental level. I think our only hope is private parities establishing their own colonies in order to create meta-materials from mined asteroids.