Weekly Lab Report - October 30, 2025
Reagan’s Legacy and a Primer on Prices
Fiscal Lab Notes is the official newsletter for the Fiscal Lab on Capitol Hill. You can check out all our work and analyses at fiscallab.org.
A Price Level Primer
As we mentioned in our previous newsletter, the Fiscal Lab is putting out a series of primers on basic economics and budget concepts. Last week, Joseph McCormack wrote a fine piece on the difference between debt and deficits. This week, Parker Sheppard has an excellent explainer of what economists call the “price level.”
Economists attempt to measure the level of prices across the economy by calculating an average of prices for a particular basket of goods and services. There is more than one way to do this, and Sheppard gives an overview of some of the most common indexes—the Consumer Price Index (CPI), the Personal Consumption Expenditure (PCE) Price Index, the Producer Price Index (PPI), and the GDP Price Index. Inflation—something that has been on the mind of everyone for the past four and a half years—is the growth rate of the price level.
Here is a look at inflation over the past 75 years. You will notice that each index is calculated differently, but the indexes show similar trends.
Speech at the Ronald Reagan Institute
Ronald Reagan’s fiscal policy legacy—supply-side tax cuts, strategic investments for defense and economic growth, and reforms to entitlements—could not be more relevant than today. Congress needs to pursue aggressive fiscal changes if the US is ever to step back from the brink of an extreme fiscal crisis. Fortunately, the Ronald Reagan Foundation and Institute in Washington, DC (just north of the White House on 16th Street) is keeping President Reagan’s fiscal policy legacy alive.
The Institute asked Fiscal Lab Executive Director Bill Beach to be the closing speaker during its first-ever American Opportunity Boot Camp. The Camp brought 30 top US college students to DC for an intensive, three-day exposure to the nation’s fiscal challenges and the processes by which Congress and the administration set policy. Beach spoke to them about his decades-long experience in Washington policymaking and how public policy formation is changing.
The Institute provided their “green room” to Beach prior to the speech (see photo above). The room’s couch came from the Reagan family quarters at the White House. Notice the couch in the photo containing the Reagans and the Prince and Princess of Wales.
Modernizing the US Statistical System
Many people do not often think about the important, often crucial role that trusted and relevant data play in policymaking. The Fiscal Lab staff, however, think about this connection a lot. Analyzing legislation and providing Members of the House and Senate with reliable, timely budget estimates is a central mission of the Fiscal Lab.
Unfortunately, the US statistical system is in deep trouble. Operating costs are rising rapidly, congressional appropriations are flat or falling, and fewer Americans want to participate in the system’s many surveys, from the flagship decennial census to the monthly jobs report.
To rectify this sad situation, Beach is co-chairing a team of former statistical agency heads to modernize the whole system. This effort, sponsored by the American Statistical Association (ASA), has convened three conferences, plans a fourth in the next two months, and will produce a final report in February. Many other groups have joined the reform effort since this ASA team started the movement in the early spring of this year. It now looks like a consensus is building, even inside the administration, to create a new, 21st-century statistical system. Stay tuned . . .