In its Mid-Session budget review last week, the White House ballyhooed the good "news" that the FY 2007 federal budget deficit projection was down from OMB's original February forecast of $244 billion to a revised $205 billion. But looking out the next five years, the muted Mid-Session story is of unmitigated worsening news on the deficit front. The deficit projected for FY08-FY12 was actually higher than what was originally forecast -- by $137 billion. And bear in mind that this figure is based on White House assumptions that the Iraq war will cost nothing after next year and that the Alternative Minimum Tax will be neither patched nor reformed, let alone repealed (or offset entirely). So, as bad as this $137 billion dollar is, it is widely seen as farcical -- farcically low.