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HELENA - Governor Brian Schweitzer is accusing Republican leadership in the Montana Legislature of manipulating state revenue numbers in order to cut the size of government.

Schweitzer says his office has had the right revenue estimate since November, and he asserts that the Legislature has, too.

"The estimates by the guessers in the basement are low, they've been low, they're wrong, they are always wrong, they're always low," he stated.

"They absolutely knew in November that these revenues were much higher than they were telling us. They knew it, but somebody, I suspect, well I will say it, Republican leadership has put their thumb on the legislative fiscal division and they said, 'No you can't use the actual numbers," Schweitzer stated.

The legislature's principal fiscal analyst, Terry Johnson, told lawmakers the state has $97 million more to spend due to increasing individual income tax.

"We never have said that we're not recovering, that Montana's economy is not recovering. That has always been made very clear that our estimates and the estimates of Global Insight show an economic recovery,"Johnson said.

Schweitzer says Republicans have been telling the fiscal division to hold back on increasing the revenue estimate, adding, "They wanted to blame the budget for why they are cutting. If they want to cut the size of government help yourself."

Republicans assert that the state is spending more than its taking in and cuts are necessary.

"What he is doing is making our job difficult, because we have a responsibility to do. We still are short and we are short a lot of money and it is not looking that good into the future. The briefing we got today is the economic forecast really didn't change," Speaker of the House Mike Milburn (R-Cascade) said. "We are doing better, but we are doing it at a less rate of growth than we have seen in the past. We have to deal with that, those are real numbers we have to deal with that, we can't play games, we can't play politics."

Schweitzer says he expects legislators to restore all the budget cuts during the second half of session.

When asked if he will veto anything he responded, "I don't like talking about vetoes."