Reply #4: The White House has explained that Bush will use a fictional number

[snippy]

as the starting point for his deficit reduction calculations.

White House frames budget around campaign promise

By Edmund L. Andrews

The New York Times
. . .

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

By starting with the outdated projection, Bush can say he already has reduced the shortfall by about $100 billion and claim victory if the deficit falls to $260 billion.

. . .

"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," 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?"

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002138211_newbudget02.html