July 17 (Bloomberg) -- As a Michigan sports fan, I have been wrestling with one of life's mysteries: Why did the Detroit Pistons, with the best record in the National Basketball Association in 2005-2006, miss the NBA finals this year, while the Detroit Tigers, normally basement dwellers, have the best record in Major League Baseball?

Having heard President George W. Bush speak about tax cuts and the deficit, my guess is that our nation's leader would likely say that that the Tigers' stunning success (but not the Pistons' downfall) was the result of his tax cuts.

Judging from the White House's recent economic bragging, when it comes to their tax cuts, only positive news can be allowed into evidence. They are like the student who wants to throw out all of his bad tests scores and be graded only on occasional shows of improvement.

Many things determine economic performance, and I have never suggested that every disappointing economic development over the last five years is due to Bush's policies. But it is hard to swallow the Bush White House's assertions of direct causation between their tax cuts and any improvement in economic projection.

You just can't ignore the fact that this recovery shows the worst job creation on record and that when you look at the complete recovery -- as opposed to its best couple of years -- growth and investment have been weak.

It is also hard to ignore that since the 2001 tax cuts were passed, median family income declined every single year, and since the 2003 tax cuts were passed, typical hourly and weekly wages fell in real terms.

Celebrating Deterioration

Finally, there is the 2006 deficit, which the administration initially projected at a $500 billion surplus. It now will be a $300 billion deficit. In other words, the Bush White House is celebrating an $800 billion deterioration. (Even in 2002 -- after factoring in the tax cut, the aftermath of recession and Sept. 11 -- the administration still projected a $127 billion surplus for 2006.)

But we are instructed to ignore all these disappointing facts and focus only on how much revenues have improved over recent projections.

Yet, even this one point shows neither strong economic performance nor that tax cuts pay for themselves. Revenues over the last several years have been dramatically lower than what the Bush administration projected when it took office in 2001. Revenues in 2003 (well after the traumas of 2001) were $550 billion less than initial projections. Revenues in 2004 came in $550 billion short, and in 2005 they were light by $400 billion. So in 2006, the big ``better-than-expected-news'' is that revenues came in only $300 billion less than the Bush team's initial 2001 projection.

$1.8 Trillion Short

In total, revenues between 2003 and 2006 fell short of the 2001 forecast by $1.8 trillion.

So is this proof-positive that the Bush tax cuts are the sole cause of a nearly $2 trillion revenue loss over just four years? If I drew that conclusion based only on those facts I would be guilty of the same selective causation as the Bush White House.

The fact is, federal revenues bounce around for many reasons, and you can choose different years as your starting point to strengthen your case from either side. The only responsible means of analyzing a fiscal policy is to look carefully at the full range of indicators, economic trends and expert opinion -- a point that Republican supply-siders were desperate to make when President Bill Clinton's fiscal policies were followed by $1.7 trillion more in revenues than projected.

They Don't Pay

Any broad analysis makes clear that the stimulus effects of the tax cuts have not paid for their costs -- especially as those projected costs rise to more than $300 billion a year by 2012.

A 2006 Congressional Research Service analysis concluded that ``no evidence of supply-side effects from the tax cuts exists thus far,'' and according to one study by the Joint Tax Committee, the 2003 tax cut will ultimately decrease economic growth in the long term.

As New York University professor Jason Furman points out, even the Bush administration's own dynamic scoring estimate in their best-case scenario found that the tax cuts would raise long-run income by 0.7 percent, enough to pay for less than 10 percent of the cost of making the tax cuts permanent.

This analysis is consistent with the fact that real per capita revenues are virtually unchanged compared with 2001, while in most recoveries of this length they grew 10 percent.

While David Stockman, Ronald Reagan's budget director, later regretted his role in suggesting that there was some form of magic that could lead tax cuts to pay for themselves, President Bush seems willing to use his bully pulpit to spread this same free-lunch rationale. It is a sad continuation of a reckless fiscal leadership.

But then again, if the Detroit Lions win the Super Bowl this year for the first time in their history, I am willing to reconsider.

(Gene Sperling, author of ``The Pro-Growth Progressive,'' was President Bill Clinton's top economic adviser. He is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this column: Gene Sperling in Washington at gsperling@cfr.org.

Last Updated: July 17, 2006 00:04 EDT