Independent budget analysts have been busy for the past couple of weeks costing out the myriad proposals and promises that Team Bush cynically stuffed into the president's acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, and the results of their efforts are eye-popping, to say the least.

The expansive agenda President Bush laid out at the Republican National Convention was missing a price tag, but administration figures show the total is likely to be well in excess of $3 trillion over a decade.

A staple of Bush's stump speech is his claim that his Democratic challenger, John F. Kerry, has proposed $2 trillion in long-term spending, a figure the Massachusetts senator's campaign calls exaggerated. But the cost of the new tax breaks and spending outlined by Bush at the GOP convention far eclipses that of the Kerry plan.

....The White House has declined to provide a full and detailed accounting of the cost of the new agenda. The administration last week provided a partial listing of the previously unannounced proposals, including "opportunity zones," that totaled $74 billion in spending over the next 10 years. But there was no mention of the cost of additional tax cuts and the creation of Social Security private accounts. Discussing his agenda during an "Ask the President" campaign forum in Portsmouth, Ohio, Bush said Friday that he has "explained how we're going to pay for it, and my opponent can't explain it because he doesn't want to tell you he's going to have to tax you."

You know, I'm almost ashamed to admit it, but I've been so thoroughly worn down by this administration's persistent and systematic dissembling over the last four years that I just can't seem to rouse myself enough to add the outrage-fueled close that this post so obviously cries out for. So I guess I'll just give you the link and move on.

UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan notes that three trillion dollars "doesn't even sound any better when Dr. Evil says it."

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