The White House is making a big deal out of its plans to hold the growth of non-defense, non-homeland security discretionary spending below 1 percent. It appears, however, to be continuing to capitalize on confusion between “budget authority” and actual spending. So the pledge amounts to a promise to control a misleading measure of a fraction of the budget. All of this is done in the service of cutting the deficit by half over five years–a pathetically modest goal. The administration would be better off setting a real spending target, and abandoning the idea of a deficit target altogether.