White House officials bragged that the administration's new budget, which is to show that President Bush can fulfill his campaign promise to cut the deficit in half by 2009, is a "masterpiece," and will become a best selling work of fiction shortly after its release. "People are really going to buy this," said a member of the White House Office of Management and Budget.

To make the case that President Bush can halve the deficit, White House officials are preparing a "masterful account" that leaves out huge amounts of spending and includes entirely ficticious income.

"This is a brilliant work of imagination and whimsy," said critic Janet Maslin, in a soon-to-be-published New York Times review.

White House officials are planning to exclude from the budget the cost of the Iraq war, Social Security, heating oil, travel and gasoline, paper, dry cleaning and payroll.

The release of the budget will be accompanied by a major advertising campaign with the tagline "If Only We Believe . . ." The White House also plans to spend 50 million dollars on "a small army" of hypnotists who will push the budget. "We can afford it," said a glazed-over John Snow, who rocked back and forth several times as he spoke. "Afforrrrrd itttt," he added.

Asked how the White House managed to come up with such an innovative and dazzling new work of fiction, OMB "imagineer" Carl Finch said, "Once you've decided to leave about 2 trillion dollars worth of Social Security privatization transition costs out of the budget, you have to ask yourself, why include expenditures at all?"

"The rest came naturally," he said.