A National Assembly Budget Office is needed to restore trust in official economic data

In last week’s Sunday column, I had indicated my plan is to link last year’s analysis of the 2011 National Budget with my evaluation of this year’s. In this regard, two crucial observations carry over from last year’s analysis. The first of these is the concern which I had expressed earlier about data quality, remain just as valid.

The massaging of economic data continues unrelentingly. Further to my recap of this concern in last week’s column, I refer readers for more information on this matter to two earlier columns of mine,