White House budgets always contain a generous dose of wishful thinking. The administration assembles its most optimistic assessments of future revenues and congressional support for spending cuts, and comes up with a picture that invariably looks rather tattered when the budget is approved by Congress months later.

Last year, for instance, the White House proposed cuts in 154 domestic programmes, with the aim of saving $15.8bn (€13.2bn, £9bn). Congress acted on just 89 of these, shaving just $6.5bn off spending - or 41 per cent of what the president proposed. Undaunted, the Bush administration yesterday called for sharp cuts in 141 programmes, to save $15bn.