Washington State Republicans and editorial writers alike hate the budget proposed by house Democrats last week.

The house Dems' proposal would cut another half billion dollars or so from a 2011–2013 state budget that already includes $4 billion in cuts (on top of billions more in the previous biennium), and by the GOP's own standards, these new cuts to government are a good thing. But the proposed budget also relies on clever accounting maneuvers to soften the blow: Dems want to defer $405 million in cuts by pushing some payments due to school districts into the 2013–2015 biennium, while another $96 million would come from drawing down state reserves.

"These are irresponsible stopgap measures," warn the fiscal geniuses at the financially troubled Seattle Times, while the Republican leadership all but accuses Democrats of committing fraud. "This is like floating a check," charges Representative Dan Kristiansen (R-Snohomish) in an op-ed published on the state house Republican caucus website. Kristiansen describes the accounting maneuver as "purchasing something now and hoping you'll have the money when the next paycheck comes in."

Except, according to all revenue forecasts (even the gloomy ones), the state's next "paycheck"—the projected revenue for the 2013–2015 biennium—will almost certainly be bigger than the last, deferring the school payments into an accounting period when the state will likely have more cash. Dismiss this as "smoke and mirrors" if you like, but if moving a line item from June 2013 to July 2013 is all it takes to keep thousands of children on our health care rolls, that's the kind of magic we shouldn't mind seeing from our state budget writers.

Indeed, far from a gimmick, this is really just a standard accounting technique, as house Speaker Frank Chopp describes it, the equivalent to shifting from a "cash basis" method of accounting to the equally acceptable "accrual basis." The money owed schools will be spent during the 2013–2015 biennium, and that is the accounting period in which the accrual basis would normally record the expense.

"It's modest in scope," explains Representative Reuven Carlyle (D-Seattle), "relative to kicking tens of thousands of people off Basic Health."

As for the downside to pushing these costs to the next budget, well, if revenues don't outgrow the deficit, we can always make the cuts Democrats are attempting to avoid. Or we can always raise taxes.

And that in the end is what this debate is really about. Republicans want austerity now, no matter the cost, so as to avoid the temptation to raise taxes in the future, while Democrats are attempting to balance the budget with the fewest cuts possible.