The budget deal is up to three-quarters "phantom" cuts from left-over funds and programs that wouldn't have spent the money anyway, according to numerous reports on the compromise that averted a government shutdown late last week.

Here is our guide -- drawing on reporting from the AP, CBS, National Journal and Washington Post -- to the $27 billion in "phantom" cuts and to where the real cuts will be felt. There is a wide range of opinion over what constitutes a "phantom" cut; for example, cutting a fund that hasn't been tapped might still cut dollars that would have been shifted to other programs. But suffice it to say that the following cuts have been called into question by mainstream organizations today.

The Phantom Cuts

$10 billion from earmarks that Republicans already tried to ban this year [AP]

+ $4.9 billion from the Justice Department's Crime Victims Fund ... "a reserve fund that wasn't going to be spent this year [so that] crime victims would receive no less money than they did before the deal." [WP]

+ $3.5 billion from an "unused spending authority" to help children of low-income familiess [AP]

+ $2.5 billion from highway funds that couldn't be spent anyway [National Journal]