There are two ways to make a budget look fiscally responsible. You can change policy. Or you can change your assumptions about how the economy will behave. Like its predecessors, the President’s FY2027 budget request prefers the latter.

Growth will be faster. Unemployment will be lower. Interest rates will fall. Inflation will settle neatly into place. And all of it will happen in a way that makes the budget’s math work. It’s a tidy story. It’s also one that few people outside the administration share.

Start with growth. The budget assumes real GDP will jump to 3.5 percent in 2026 and then hover just above 3 percent for several years before settling just under that level long term. The Congressional Budget Office, the Federal Reserve, and private-sector forecasters all expect something much closer to 2 percent.

That gap may not sound dramatic, but over a decade, it’s the difference between a manageable fiscal outlook and one that quickly deteriorates. Faster growth means higher revenues, lower safety-net spending, and—conveniently—a rosier deficit picture. If you assume the economy grows faster than everyone expects, the budget looks a lot more responsible.

The same pattern shows up in the labor market. The administration projects unemployment drifting down to 3.7 percent and then staying there for the rest of the forecast window. That’s not just low—it’s persistently below what most economists consider sustainable without reigniting inflation. Outside forecasts again tell a different story, with higher unemployment rates expected over the same period.

Then there are interest rates, where the optimism becomes almost giddy. The administration projects the 10-year Treasury rate falling to about 3.3 percent and staying there. Other forecasters see something closer to 4 percent. Interest rates are one of the biggest drivers of federal borrowing costs. In a budget already strained by rising debt, shaving even a fraction of a percentage point off projected rates can make the numbers look significantly better.

To be fair, inflation is one area where the administration’s projections are roughly in line with other forecasts. Everyone expects inflation to come down and stabilize near the Federal Reserve’s target. But even here, the budget assumes no bumps, no setbacks, no surprises.

And that’s really the theme. Not that any single assumption is impossible, but that all of them line up perfectly at the same time. Stronger growth than expected. Lower unemployment than expected. Lower interest rates than expected. And no meaningful tradeoffs between them.

Even the document itself hints at the fragility of the exercise. Buried in the back is a reminder that small changes in economic conditions can have large effects on the budget. A one percentage point drop in growth, for example, can increase deficits by well over a trillion dollars over time. And that’s before factoring in policies like tariffs, which the administration often treats as free revenue but which in reality act as a drag on growth and a source of higher prices.

Speaking of deficits, the initial release of budget documents doesn’t project one. Not because the budget is balanced, but because the bare bones Summary Tables don’t include even rosy revenue projections. Without revenue to compare to spending, you can’t estimate a deficit. But you can be sure there will be one.

Building a budget on a scenario where everything goes right—and where your assumptions are consistently more optimistic than the Fed, CBO, and private forecasters isn’t a plan. It’s a dream.