Boskin Commission: Difference between revisions

''You have a small number of economists who, in the mid 90s, became directed by Bob packwood and Daniel Moynahan to find an overstatement of the CPI, because tax brackets were indexed, and entitlement benefits, social security, medicare were indexed. And so what they found is if you could knock down the measurement of the CPI, you could raise taxes and slash benefits. And they backed out that 1.1% overstatement, if corrected, would lead to a trillion dollar savings over 10 years. And they actually broke into two groups to come up with two separate numbers that would add together to 1.1, which to me is academic malpractice. That is, they started with the target—and this is according to one of their own members of this '''Boskin Commission''', Professor Gordon, who talked about the fact that "somehow" the two groups came up with the two numbers, which, when added together, gave Dale Jorgensen, a Harvard professor of economics, his 1.1% overstatement. And that's what they went with. Now, to me, that's like saying, "we need to find an error in all the temperature gauges so that we can come up with different targets because global warming is a problem." You're not allowed to touch the temperature gauges, for God's sakes!''