Recurring federal budget deficits and the $16 trillion accumulated national debt have been dominating political debate. Politicians in Washington continue to argue over taxes and spending, with most now vowing to reduce deficits and debt.

But Americans have learned to be cynical when it comes to elected officials’ claims of budget cuts.

For decades, there has been debate over the meaning of a spending cut. In the real world, a spending cut means spending less than the year before. In Washington, D.C., a spending cut more often means just slowing the rate of spending growth — spending less than had been projected, but still more than the year before.

The Washington Post featured a front-page article Sunday that only increases public skepticism over elected officials’ claims of budget cuts.

Details of a 2011 deal between President Barack Obama and Congress that reportedly slashed $37.8 billion from the federal budget to avoid a government shutdown were reviewed. The Post found that the big budget cut, which Obama hailed as “the largest annual spending cut in our history,” was, in the end, not much of a cut at all.

Details of a few of the $37 billion in budget cuts will feed even more cynicism anytime Washington boasts of making tough budget cuts.

In one case, the Department of Defense took a $6.2 billion cut. But $5 billion of that was money that had been spent in the prior year for major base closing and relocation work. The Pentagon was not planning to spend another $5 billion the following year, yet the 2011 budget deal counted the nonrecurring expenditure of $5 billion as a budget cut.

Another $6.2 billion in budget cuts in the 2011 deal came from the Census Bureau, which had spent about $6 billion conducting the 2010 national census. The once-every-10-years national head count was not going to happen in 2011, yet the “historic” budget agreement praised by Obama and congressional leaders counted that $6 billion that was not going to be spent as a budget cut. The Post noted, the Census Bureau got credit for the $6 billion cut because “they promised not to hold the expensive 2010 census again in 2011.”

Various other budget cuts turned out to be projects that had already been canceled, but had not yet had the money reassigned. The budget trickery was done at the Pentagon, where projects that came in under budget also were cast as budget cuts.

Whether or not they knew about the phantom cuts in the 2011 deal, conservative Republicans now say they will no longer allow gimmicks to be sold as budget cuts. They say they will demand real cuts — and for some that makes the looming budget sequestration, with across-the-board cuts, attractive.

Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-S.C., called the 2011 cuts “smoke and mirrors” and said, “That’s the lesson from April 2011: that when Washington says it cuts spending, it doesn’t mean the same thing that normal people mean.”

One good thing that might come from these now-exposed budget gimmicks is that fiscally conservative lawmakers, and maybe taxpayers, will be watching for more tricks — and demanding real cuts.

The budget tricks revealed in the Post article confirm that when Washington politicians boast of spending cuts, it’s important to ask follow-up questions.