Chimp Math

We all know the Preznit was a lousy student, right? Now we know he condones cheating. Seems the administration plans to use a little fuzzy math both in the budgeting porocess and in accounting for Social Security privatization.

The Social Security sleight of hand isn't really news, but check out how dishonest these people are.

To make Mr. Bush's goal easier to reach, administration officials have decided to measure their progress against a $521 billion deficit they predicted last February rather than last year's actual shortfall of $413 billion.

By starting with the outdated projection, Mr. Bush can say he has already reduced the shortfall by about $100 billion and claim victory if the deficit falls to just $260 billion.

But White House budget planners are not stopping there. Administration officials are also invoking optimistic assumptions about rising tax revenue while excluding costs for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as trillions of dollars in costs that lie just outside Mr. Bush's five-year budget window.

This is impressive, use numbers they now know were wrong in the first place to show, lo and behold, the plan is working.

The five-year plan, due in February, is likely to reaffirm previous predictions of a $217 billion surge in tax revenues in 2005, the biggest one-year jump on record, and almost $800 billion a year by 2009.

"We still believe we will see new economic growth, with revenues increasing as a share of G.D.P.," said Chad Kolton, a spokesman for the White House Office of Management and Budget, referring to the gross domestic product. "I think our numbers are very realistic because they are consistent with the best estimates of Wall Street and of the Congressional Budget Office."

As in past years, the budget will exclude costs for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which could reach $100 billion in 2005 and are likely to remain high for years to come. The budget is also expected to exclude Mr. Bush's goal to replace Social Security in part with a system of private savings accounts, even though administration officials concede that such a plan could require the government to borrow $2 trillion over the next decade or two.

The hundreds of billions we're spending on our colonial interests in Afghanistan and Iraq don't count either. That $2 trillion is for liabilities related to Medicare, the AMT, and the cost of making permanent the Bush tax cuts.

Many analysts are dubious about the long-term plan. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that deficits will remain well above $300 billion if Mr. Bush's tax cuts are made permanent and if Iraq war costs taper off gradually. On Wall Street, analysts at Goldman Sachs predict that budget deficits will total about $5 trillion over the next 10 years.

"I've been watching this more than 30 years, and I have never seen anything quite this egregious," said Stanley Collender, a longtime author on budget issues and a senior vice president at Financial Dynamics, a communications firm in Washington.

"They are cutting the deficit from a number they never believed in the beginning," Mr. Collender said, referring to the decision to measure progress against the unrealized $521 billion deficit projection. "What if they had forecast that the deficit would be $800 billion last year? Would they take credit for having cut it by half?"

Dubious indeed. Where are the adults? Whither will the budget hawks land on this one?