The truth is going to hurt

By Libby Spencer

Honesty is the best policy but I hope they're prepared for the inevitable Republican caterwauling when the numbers come out.

For his first annual budget next week, President Obama has banned four accounting gimmicks that President George W. Bush used to make deficit projections look smaller. The price of more honest bookkeeping: A budget that is $2.7 trillion deeper in the red over the next decade than it would otherwise appear, according to administration officials.

And this part makes me a little nervous. "The new accounting involves spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Medicare reimbursements to physicians and the cost of disaster responses." I really hope that the strategy here is to use the numbers to sell a national health care plan and ending the occupations rather than a plan to further downgrade reimbursements to doctors that are already too artificially low.

Furthermore, if this is true and the Obama administration is really trying to kill the email lawsuit against the Bush adminstration -- well -- it's doing nothing to bolster my confidence that we're going to see any real transparency or accountability any time soon. Obama can't just pick and choose what to uncover.

(Cross-posted at The Impolitic.)