On the campaign trail in Charleston yesterday, GOP gubernatorial nominee Bill Brady touted an idea that his Republican colleagues in the General Assembly have championed all year: a "forensic audit" of state government. The catchy-sounding approach to budgeting taps into the zeitgeist of the times;  to root out "waste and fraud," Brady wants the state's Auditor General to review every state spending bill, government hire, and government contract approved over the last nine years. Republicans in both the Illinois House and Senate backed resolutions along these lines in the spring.

There's just one problem with the forensic audit. It might cost more money than it saves. William Holland, the state's auditor general, testified against the resolutions this spring. He said a such a measure, which presupposes that every transaction is shady until proven clean, would force his office to review 135 million transactions and 50,000 contracts. As he told the assembled lawmakers, that would take "an immense, gigantic, astronomical" amount of money and time to complete. We're talking hundreds of millions of dollars. On top of that, the workload would cut into the time his office has to conduct its routine annual audits. "Now I would be going down two rails," he said. Listen below:

Let's look on the bright side, though; the forensic audit might force the state to hire more investigators. Maybe the GOP should sell it as a jobs plan ...