The focus right now – and probably for many months to come – is the bailout binge aimed at saving our financial system. All told, the government will likely put more than $1 trillion on the line (with hope the money will be recouped down the road).

Then there are the two wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan. The combined cost is fast approaching $1 trillion, too – and both will eat up the time and budgets of the next president.

Then there is also the prescription drug benefit Bush added to Medicare. It carries a projected price tag of nearly $700 billion over ten years and serves as a powerful reminder of how big – untenably big, many experts say – our entitlement programs have grown.

None of that spending was cooked into the federal budget when Bush took office eight years ago, leaving a budgetary hole almost too deep to comprehend. It will tie the hands of President McCain or President Obama in ways neither candidate has reckoned with yet on the campaign trail.