The big campaign news of the day is a new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll showing that Ted Cruz leads Donald Trump nationally, 28-26 percent. But this seems unlikely: Four new national polls have been released since yesterday, and three of them continue to show Trump with about 38 percent support compared to 17 percent for Cruz.

So what’s going on with the NBC poll? If it’s an outlier, it’s a hell of an outlier. I couldn’t even find a table extensive enough to tell me how unlikely it is to be just a sample error. One in a million, maybe? So maybe it’s a problem with NBC’s likely-voter filter? Could be. Or maybe there’s been an enormous negative response to Trump’s debate performance last Saturday? The NBC poll is the only telephone poll done entirely after the debate, so if that were the case it would show up most strongly there.

Very odd. I guess we wait and see.

I made a mistake a couple of days ago, and now all of you have to pay the price by listening to my explanation. Here’s what happened.

My intentions were honorable. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation put up a chart showing the growth of health care spending over the past two years, but it wasn’t adjusted for inflation. You all know how I feel about that, don’t you? Spending over time should always be adjusted for inflation. So I did the adjustment and posted a revised chart.

But then I got persuaded that I had used the wrong inflation measure. Instead of overall CPI, I should use just the medical component of CPI. So I did that. Unfortunately, I somehow slipped a digit and did it all wrong, which produced a rather odd looking chart. Long story, short, I’ve spent bits and pieces of the past two days trying to decide how to do this right. The answer is: CPI rather than PCE; medical rather than overall inflation; and year-over-year rather than compounded inflation. The original RWJF chart and the newly-corrected inflation-adjusted chart are on the right.

Ironically, what this ends up showing is…nothing. The numbers in the second chart are all lower, but the general trend is the same in both: spending growth peaks at the beginning of 2015 as Obamacare draws more people into the system, and then steadily declines as the flow of new consumers ebbs. The inflation adjustment didn’t change anything.

This is because inflation has been low and pretty flat for the past two years. However, that’s not always guaranteed. Sometimes inflation changes substantially over multi-year periods, and that can make trends in nominal dollars badly misleading. So even though it doesn’t matter much sometimes, always adjust for inflation! The statistical gods will look favorably upon you.

The political fight over the current vacancy on the Supreme Court is very simple: Conservatives want a conservative justice to replace Antonin Scalia and liberals want a liberal justice. The end.

The PR fight, however, is far more interesting. As Greg Sargent says, it’s a fight for the political center of America:

Democrats are betting that the American people will see their reading of what the Constitution obliges the Senate to do as the more reasonable one, i.e., that voters will agree that Senate Republicans should consider Obama’s nominee, and that their refusal to do so reflects the broader GOP strategy of scorched earth anti-Obama obstruction that has produced so much gridlock and chaos.

Republicans came out of the gate saying they’d refuse to even consider an Obama nominee. This was plainly tough talk aimed at the base, but in the underlying PR battle it was a blunder. Republicans have pulled this stunt before—on the DC Circuit Court, on the NLRB, on the CFPB—but people who aren’t political junkies weren’t paying much attention back then. That changes with a high-profile position like Supreme Court justice.

So now Republicans are backing off a bit. President Obama announced in mild tones that of course he’d nominate someone—that’s what the Constitution tells him to do—and Republicans are kinda sorta saying that they’ll hold hearings after all. If they do, they’ve probably dodged a bullet since most of America isn’t really paying attention yet. The next stage in this PR battle is up to Obama: will he nominate someone who’s scrupulously centrist and well qualified? That would rack up some points for Team Liberal in the battle to seem most reasonable. Will Republicans then run hearings that are at least tolerably efficient and fair-minded? That would rack up some points on their side.

Roughly speaking, every statement or action by anyone in the Supreme Court fight should be interpreted as a shot being fired in the underlying PR war. Most people won’t care about this—they’re already firmly on a team—but there’s a small sliver of voters in the middle who do care, and they could make the difference in November. For that reason, it’s worth it for each side to try to rein in its extremists and put up a show of being the most reasonable. Democrats have the early lead right now, but they won’t necessarily keep it. After all, they have a base to keep happy too.

Richard Ellis/Zuma Wire

I’m not quite sure what I was doing last week when this first appeared, but I missed it. Here’s a summary from UMass Amherst professor Gerald Friedman about the impact on the economy if we adopt all of Bernie Sanders’ domestic spending proposals:

WTF? Per-capita GDP will grow 4.5 percent? And not just in a single year: Friedman is projecting it will grow by an average of 4.5 percent every year for the next decade. Productivity growth will double compared with Congressional Budget Office projections—and in case you’re curious, there has never been a 10-year period since World War II in which productivity grew 3.18 percent. Not one. And miraculously, the employment-population ratio, which has been declining since 2000 and has never reached 65 percent ever in history, will rise to 65 percent in a mere 10 years.

The Sanders campaign hasn’t officially endorsed this analysis, but we do have this:

Warren Gunnels, policy director for the Sanders campaign, hailed the report’s finding that the proposals are feasible and expressed hope that more people will look into them. “It’s gotten a little bit of attention, but not nearly as much as we would like,” Mr. Gunnels said. “Senator Sanders has been fighting establishment politics, the establishment economics and the establishment media. And this is the last thing they want to take a look at.

“It shows that over a 10-year period, we would create 26 million new jobs, the poverty rate would plummet, that incomes would go up dramatically, and we would have strong economic growth…It’s a very bold plan, and we want to get this out there.“

I’ve generally tried to go easy on Sanders. I like his vision, and I like his general attitude toward Wall Street. But this is insane. If anything, it’s worse than the endless magic asterisks that Republicans use to pretend their tax plans will supercharge the economy and pay for themselves. It’s not even remotely in the realm of reality. If it were, France and Germany and Denmark would by now be consumer paradises to make Croesus blush.

A group of stuffy establishment economists says “no credible economic research” supports Friedman’s analysis, which “undermines our reputation as the party of responsible arithmetic.” Or, in Austan Goolsbee’s more colorful language, Sanders’ plans have “evolved into magic flying puppies with winning Lotto tickets tied to their collars.”

Enough is enough. Everyone needs to get back to reality. This ain’t it.

Corporations typically use data mining of personal information in order to sell more stuff to their customers. However, corporate wellness programs are mostly used in an effort to sell less stuff to their employees. For example:

Based on data such as an individual’s history, the firms can identify a person who might be considering costly procedures like spinal surgery, and can send that person recommendations for a second opinion or physical therapy.

Spinal surgery, which can cost $20,000 or more, is another area where data experts are digging in. After finding that 30% of employees who got second opinions from top-rated medical centers ended up forgoing spinal surgery, Wal-Mart tapped Castlight to identify and communicate with workers suffering from back pain.

To find them, Castlight scans insurance claims related to back pain, back imaging or physical therapy, plus pharmaceutical claims for pain medications or spinal injections. Once identified, the workers get information about measures that could delay or head off surgery, such as physical therapy or second-opinion providers.

So what do you think? Programs designed to lower health care costs are a good idea. Providing useful health information to employees is a good idea. But how about providing information specifically designed to influence a course of treatment? Is this an attempt to steer employees away from fly-by-night doctors who recommend back surgery for everyone? Or just another green-eyeshade attempt to persuade employees to forego expensive procedures?

Hey, those are good questions! Answers will be forthcoming some day.

A federal judge wants Apple to build a “back door” that allows it to access encrypted data on the iPhone belonging to the San Bernardino attackers. Apple is resisting:

The order, signed Tuesday by a magistrate judge in Riverside, Calif., does not ask Apple to break the phone’s encryption but rather to disable the feature that wipes the data on the phone after 10 incorrect tries at entering a password. That way, the government can try to crack the password using “brute force” — attempting tens of millions of combinations without risking the deletion of the data….Federal prosecutors stated in a memo accompanying the order that the software would affect only the seized phone.

In theory, this should be little more than a macabre joke. If Apple is truly using strong encryption, it wouldn’t take ten million tries to crack the password, it would take more tries than there are atoms in the universe.

Unless, of course, the attackers are really stupid and used “123456” or “Jihad Forever” as their password. Which they very well might have. Folks like this aren’t always especially bright.

In any case, I find it hard to side with Apple here. It’s one thing for Apple to implement strong encryption that even Apple itself can’t break. It’s another to deny law enforcement the ability to even try to break the encryption. My initial reaction—which I admit might change if I think about this further—is that liberals have never opposed the right of the government to execute a search. We just want them to get a warrant first, and we want it particularized to a specific case. So we object to warrantless searches and we object to mass collection of surveillance data. A court order that applies to a specific case shouldn’t be a problem.

Apple, of course, is arguing that if they create a special FBI version of iOS, it can be used anytime and anywhere, with or without a warrant. So that’s the question for the court. If they compel Apple to create a version of iOS that can be hacked, are there legally enforceable restrictions on its use? Or does it become a permanent plaything for anyone who can issue a national security letter—which appears to include practically the entire FBI? This will be an interesting case going forward.

As John McEnroe might say, you have got to be kidding me:

NEWS: Joe & Mika will moderate a town hall with Donald Trump airing in prime time tomorrow at 8pmET @MSNBC

— Jesse Rodriguez (@JesseRodriguez) February 16, 2016

This is just what the world needs: assisting Donald Trump yet again in his eternal quest for more television air time. This particular lovefest-cum-fuck-you is being hosted by one of his biggest fans, and is scheduled directly opposite the CNN town hall with Carson, Cruz and Rubio.

Look, I get it: ratings are everything, and Trump pulls ratings. But surely TV executives still have a sliver of self-respect left? Were they afraid they hadn’t mentioned Trump enough in February, and he might get mad at them?

Hooray! The Tax Policy Center has analyzed Ted Cruz’s tax plan, which means we now have data for all of the top four Republican candidates: Donald Trump, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, and Cruz. Click the links for details. Or just look at the charts below for the nickel summary.

Folks, Ted Cruz is killing it. The other guys are touting tax plans that give paltry income gains to the middle class and big income gains to the rich. Cruz gives the usual paltry sop to the middle class, but incomes of the rich would skyrocket 26 percent under his plan. 26 percent! That’s what I call a tax plan.

Trump is still the winner in the budget-busting contest, but Cruz is close. His plan would increase the deficit $8.6 trillion over ten years. Overall, I have to say that Cruz is bringing his A game. If you calculate his Richie Rich Index™—percentage deficit increase plus percentage income increase for the rich—Cruz clocks in with a score of 87.4, beating out Trump by a hair. Congratulations, Ted.

Yesterday Donald Trump finally went ballistic over Ted Cruz’s attacks against him. After listing half a dozen alleged lies, he made this threat:

One of the ways I can fight back is to bring a lawsuit against him relative to the fact that he was born in Canada and therefore cannot be President. If he doesn’t take down his false ads and retract his lies, I will do so immediately.

The great thing about this is that Trump doesn’t even bother pretending that he wants to sue Cruz because he truly believes Cruz isn’t a natural-born citizen. He just flat-out admits that he plans to do it as revenge for Cruz being mean to him. The Golden Rule here is simple: “They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue.”

This appears to be a considerable source of Trump’s appeal. His supporters don’t care much about actual political positions; they care about having a mean SOB in office. They probably like Trump more because he’s going after Cruz out of anger rather than as a matter of principle.

California conservatives are idiots. Check this out:

The state’s powerful agriculture industry and its political allies are gathering signatures for a November ballot initiative that would grab bond money earmarked for California’s bullet train and use it instead for new water projects.

You all know how I feel about the LA-San Francisco bullet train. I don’t know how I feel about a bunch of new water projects, but there’s a decent chance I’d vote for an initiative like this just to kill the train boondoggle once and for all. Except for this:

In addition, the measure would make substantial changes to state water law via a constitutional amendment, setting domestic water use and irrigation as the first- and second- highest priorities — ahead of environmental conservation.

….Jim Earp, a member of the California Transportation Commission who led the rail bonds campaign, said the water measure could have a difficult time because its backers were greedy. “They have basically a deeply flawed measure,” Earp said. “They couldn’t resist overreaching. They couldn’t resist the temptation to rewrite water laws to benefit corporate farmers who are going to underwrite the campaign.”

The eminent domain folks made the same mistake a few years ago, and they made it twice. Instead of trying to pass a simple measure that would have barred eminent domain for private projects—which I would have voted for—they couldn’t resist larding up their measures with a bunch of wish-list provisions from libertarians and property developers. So they lost.

I predict the same thing here. The bullet train isn’t popular these days and water is a big concern. That’s a handy confluence of events for the ag industry. But they couldn’t stay content with just raiding a bit of money for water projects. They’re so furious about their water supply being restricted by a bunch of starry-eyed greens that they had to toss in a provision directly targeted at environmental concerns. But like it or not, Californians care about the environment, and they’re not likely to approve this nonsense. So the initiative will go down. Idiots.