Q: What's wrong with this story?

A: Everything. Inept reporting, avoidance of the facts, and painting economic reality as a matter of debate. Yesterday I wrote about the mystifying attempts to spin lower gas prices as a Republican "victory," as though people are unaware of what caused high prices in the first place. On the economic front, this is their other talking point (along with the high stock market, which doesn't mean much to most Americans).

The article claims right off the bat that the federal deficit's "four-year low of $247.7 billion" is "a welcome economic talking point" for Republicans. And it sounds great, unless you know the facts-- something that isn't going to happen in an article where skeptics are by definition "liberal-leaning."

You might recall that the Bush administration started with a budget surplus, and turned it into an unprecedented deficit, outspending all previous administrations by a longshot. Bush's pledges to halve the deficit that his party's free spending created were given an assist by the submission of projected deficits that were even higher than those the GOP intended to create. Voila! You're already being responsible! It's the same reasoning behind "I saved us a bundle on this mink coat-- it was on sale."

And as with energy costs, the GOP is counting on voters to forget that they've created this mess. It isn't working out on the gas front, and I don't think it'll benefit them much here, either.

One final note on what a joke this article is: "The reason for the improvement this year was a second consecutive big jump in revenues, propelled by strong economic strength." I don't even need to exercise my mighty blogging might to point out the problem here.