DEAN AND BLACKS

Another boo-boo.

THE DISCREPANCY: Dan Mitchell from the Heritage Foundation explains how the White House numbers for spending conflict with, er, reality:

The Bush Administration is measuring annual changes in budget authority (a form of hypothetical money that indicates how much a certain department or agency has in its hypothetical checkbook) while Heritage – and everyone else – measures annual changes in budget outlays (how much money actually is being spent).
Budget authority, I should mention, is not a fraudulent concept, but it does allow for fraudulent game-playing. You can shift budget authority between fiscal years. You can deliberately reduce budget authority in the short run even though you realize that your outlay trendline makes that untenable. etc, etc.
Outlays are where the rubber meets the road, so to speak. I will gladly defend the WH’s tax policy, but their spending policy is obscene.

Obscenity covered with obfuscation. Tax and spend is bad enough. Spend, borrow and spin is worse.

KERRY ON THE UPSWING: Now, the Concord Monitor is endorsing him.