Three weeks ago, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger unveiled a new state budget for the 2007-08 fiscal year and declared that after a half-decade of multibillion-dollar deficits, "our new operating deficit has been reduced to zero."

The Republican governor made his assertion the centerpiece of the media and public reaction to the budget, but since the unveiling, it's become increasingly evident that the claim of fiscal solvency is, to put it mildly, premature.

The term "operating deficit" itself is something new. Budgets are either balanced -- spending no more than what's available in revenues -- or not, but it's not unusual for governors to fudge on the definition. The state constitution requires proposed budgets to be balanced, although there's no such requirement, oddly enough, on the final budgets.