My personal favorite example of government fiddling comes in the arena of job growth. The Labor Department Web site this past December defined new jobs as: "the total number of persons on establishment payrolls employed full or part time who received pay for any part of the pay period that includes the 12th day of the month. Temporary and intermittent employees are included, as are any workers who are on paid sick leave, on paid holiday, or who work during only part of the specified pay period."

If someone "temps" as a receptionist for a day, that is counted as a new job. Short-term or hourly work certainly doesn't fit most Americans' idea of what constitutes a job. We think of jobs as full-time employment with benefits — or at least some benefits and a guarantee of future employment for a period of time, even if it's just two weeks notice. Ever since coming upon this definition, I have found myself in amazement each time "new jobs" figures were released. Counting temporary or part-time positions as employment is sad to the point of pathetic.

By Phillips' calculations, realistic government data would reveal the unemployment rate to be between 9 and 12 percent, inflation at "7 or even 10 percent" and growth since the 2001 recession modest at best with recession already upon us once again.

Phillips cites a Gallup Poll released late in 2007 showing public faith in the federal government sinking "below even post-Watergate levels. Whether statistical deceit played any direct role is unclear."

With all due deference to Phillips, what's driving lack of faith in Uncle Sam is quite clear from where I sit. I'm sick of being lied to. I think we should all agree we're not going to take it anymore. We want honest economic data, period, no matter how bad it is.

Anything less assumes us to be a public of idiots. Nothing less will suffice.

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Bonnie Erbe is a TV host and writes this column for Scripps Howard News Service. E-mail bonnieerbe@CompuServe.com.