President Bush will need to find some way to make money grow on trees if he intends to make good on one of his State of the Union Address promises.

Bush contended Tuesday he will soon send a budget to Congress that will “cut the deficit in half over the next five years.”

What some may forget, however, is that when Bush took office, he and the Republican Congress inherited a surplus from the Clinton era.

Since then, Bush has reinstituted the type of deficit spending that his father and Ronald Reagan were notorious for. The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities reports that legislation enacted over the last six years increased the national debt by $2.3 trillion.

Since taking office, Bush has never proposed a balanced budget. And though he promises to restore a budget surplus within the next five years, a new forecast from the Congressional Budget Office – a non-partisan agency that provides lawmakers with estimates of the budget put the deficit for the current budget year at about $200 billion after factoring in Iraq war costs. Last year’s deficit was $248 billion.

On Tuesday, Bush promised to cut the deficit spending that he approved and encouraged. Bush cut taxes while engaging in a war in Iraq that has cost more than $360 billion and is increasing spending.

If you get a pay cut at your job, you can’t increase spending without going into debt – it’s simple math.

But then, for us to assume Bush’s State of the Union Address – or any president’s, for that matter – is nothing more than a statement of an unattainable wish list of goals is perhaps naive.

The solution? Bush will either need to raise taxes or drastically cut military spending to achieve his goals – neither of which will happen under his watch.

So, in the meantime, his best option will be to seek out the seed that sprouts the money tree.