WHEN IT COMES to handling the national budget deficit, the Bush administration can't seem to separate fact from fiction.

This week it was reported that the White House is preparing a budget that will help it achieve its stated goal of cutting the federal deficit in half by 2009 -- by basing the numbers on imaginary predictions.

Rather than using last year's record $413 billion budget shortfall in its calculations, Bush's budget team has decided to use an outdated $521 billion deficit it predicted last year. The reason, according to the New York Times, is so Bush can state that he's already reduced the deficit by more than $100 billion and thus will allow him to claim victory if the shortfall drops to just $260 billion.

The president's budget ruse