Sen. John Kerry is being characterized as a big-spending, Massachusetts liberal. It’s true he has a liberal record in the Senate. And he’s definitely from Massachusetts.

But the prize for big-spending proposals in this year’s election actually goes to President Bush. It’s counterintuitive, but a cost comparison of the proposals outlined by the two men running for president shows Bush’s ideas would have a much larger impact on federal spending and revenue.

According to a study conducted by the Washington Post, which hired independent experts to crunch the numbers, President Bush’s plans to make his tax cuts permanent, privatize Social Security and create new health savings accounts are likely to cost more than $3 trillion in 10 years. By the Bush campaign’s own estimates, Kerry’s proposed programs would cost about $2 trillion.

The Bush budget projections don’t include money for ongoing operations in Iraq, which currently cost about $4 billion a month, or more money for growing homeland security needs. The deeper you look into the numbers, the worse it gets.

All campaigns are vulnerable to the exaggerated promises of what will be, but the deficit and country’s growing debt are real problems that must be addressed. It’s not enough for the president to say he will cut the deficit in half in five years when the plans he would enact would clearly compound the problem.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, if President Bush has his way, the country’s deficit would increase to $500 billion in 2009. In 10 years, the deficits would add more than $4 trillion to the national debt.

Government has to get its fiscal house in order. As the head of the CBO told lawmakers recently, the country will not be able to grow its way out of the debt hole. That means discipline on spending and tax cuts.

The president and Republican Congress have supported pay-as-you-go rules for new federal spending, but have not applied the same standard to tax cuts. The rules should apply across the board.