Worked-example setupScope and assumptions
- The CBO card is a dated counterfactual analysis of automatic stabilizers, not a current universal multiplier.
- The hypothetical discretionary grant requires separate enacted-text and entity evidence.
- Period
- Dated 2024 analysis with a separate fictional legislative scenario
- Units
- qualitative evidence checkpoints
- Rounding
- Not applicable
A recession reduces taxable income and increases eligibility under existing rules. That is an automatic response; no new vote is required for the rule to operate. A newly enacted infrastructure purchase, tax credit, or transfer is discretionary action, though later implementation may be delegated.
Keep four ledgers:
- legal: enactment, delegation, effective date, eligibility, and sunset;
- budget: receipts, obligations, outlays, baseline, and financing;
- economic: purchases versus transfers, timing, capacity, behavior, incidence, multipliers, leakage, crowding, and monetary conditions; and
- entity: contract, entitlement, performance, tax or grant authority, measurement, recognition, disclosure, and cash.
CBO's estimate depends on its baseline and model. A later observed deficit is not the causal effect of automatic stabilizers by inspection. Likewise, an appropriation does not establish that a vendor earned revenue or received cash.
Verified calculation · economics foundations analysis
The curriculum loader recomputed this example before it entered the site build. Expand any structured input to inspect the stated facts.
- claim audits
- 1 field
Inspect data
{
"fiscal_transmission_claim": {
"causal_design_supplied": 0,
"decision_authority_identified": 1,
"feasible_alternatives_compared": 0,
"model_assumptions_stated": 1,
"observation_supplied": 1,
"value_criterion_stated": 1
}
}Recomputed result
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| causal claim supported | 0 |
| descriptive claim supported | 1 |
| model implication supported | 1 |
| recommendation supported | 0 |