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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (45515)	9/1/2010 6:29:05 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

The problem is we don't have an accurate and detailed analysis. The CBO report is somewhat detailed, but it isn't accurate, and isn't even an analysis of the important question. It simply isn't an analysis of "is our economy better because of the spending", its an analysis of "assuming spending category A helps by X, B by Y, C by Z, how much did it help". That's really a very different question. If we assume that taking an ounce of poison adds a year to your life, then we can calculate how many years are added to your life by taking 3 gallons of poison, but that wouldn't be an analysis of "Does taking poison lengthen your life?" I'm not saying that the CBO's assumptions are that ridiculous, just that their general assumptions are very questionable, and in fact are essentially the relevant question being assessed, and that their specificity is ridiculous (if not as much so as "an ounce of poison adds a year to you life)