After decades of federal deficits and an increasing national debt, all the talk here in Washington of enormous budget surpluses seems too good to be true. Unfortunately, it is.

The extra $1 trillion in federal surpluses over the next decade that has magically appeared in recent presidential and congressional budget projections are real only if you believe three unbelievable things:

First, to believe in the surplus, you have to think that Congress will sharply cut federal spending. The budget projections coming out of Washington assume that lawmakers will honor the caps on discretionary spending enacted in the 1997 budget deal. Congress would then have to defy history and slash spending by almost $600 billion over 10 years.

Second, you must assume that no “emergency spending” will occur, despite the fact that Congress has averaged $8 billion in emergency spending per year.

Third, you have to believe that it is possible to predict what the economy will be like for the next 10 years. The trillion that has turned up since the president submitted his last budget is the result of the economy growing more rapidly this year than economists anticipated. Just as this year's unexpected growth pushed up the projected surplus, unpredictable future economic events — a stock market crash, a farm crisis, a war — could eliminate it altogether.

Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats have demonstrated the guts to spell out significant program cuts, let alone execute them. Spending caps imposed just two years ago are on the verge of collapse. And even without a dime of new expenditures, almost half of the $1 trillion surplus will vanish if future spending simply keeps up with inflation.

Even if the projected surplus does develop, the prudent policy would be to start paying off the national debt. This would free up resources for future economic investment that would help to keep a strong economy into the future.

Current fiscal discipline has made our economy strong. Reducing federal debt would prepare the nation for the overwhelming cost of Social Security and Medicare for retiring baby boomers.

While performing tax-cut tricks is always a crowd-pleaser, the happy budget talk in Washington is still pure illusion that would make even the magician David Copperfield jealous.