With release of CBO's latest budget projection comes the latest edition of Tales from the OMB. OMB Director Rob Portman released this statement regarding CBO's projection of coming surpluses (more on that later, but I want to debunk this bit that really sticks in my craw): Two years ago the President laid out an ambitious goal to cut the deficit in half by 2009, and we met that goal three years early. This is, of course, remarkably similar to this week's episode of Presidential Budget Story Time, as encapsulated by this line in the president's SOTU speech: We set a goal of cutting the deficit in half by 2009, and met that goal three years ahead of schedule. As we've mentioned before, the president has not, in fact, cut the deficit in half. On this point, he is misleading his audience - the American people - about the real-world federal budget situation. I don't think President Bush nor the OMB is going to stop propagating this mischaracterization, but it's important to point this out when they do, if only to take advantage of an educational moment on the differences between OMB-projected deficits and deficits that actually materialized.