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Leftists have often demonstrated a refusal to believe the rules of the marketplace apply to them.

It only takes preponderance of the evidence in a civil case to achieve said relief, and since monetary damages are not requested only administrative relief the case would have everything going for it with the government on the hook to prove its numbers valid. Violation of expected Statistical varience from trend is more than enough to seek relief, and with evidence of arbitrary change of methodology from accepted practice will slam a grossly erroneous published value right into the bit bucket long before it could ever be implemented.

Your scenarios are merely speculative and have little to recomend them or even suggest a rational basis in view of historical processes and modes in the publication and implementation of statute sensitive statistics. Nor do they take into account of the very real and useful authority of the court to set bureau regulation right when such exceed the boundries of legislative scope.

Now if Congress were to enact such a gross change in methodology to specifcally implement such shenannigans that would be another matter another matter, but we are subject to that right now so your imaginative worries mean nothing through extension onto a new statute. The statutes are subject to legislative change now an can modify the current law to achieve severe magnitude changes in tax law now without risking the least in challenges before the courts.

But mere official error, malfeasance, misfeasance or outright fraud will not fly on adequate challenge in the courts. And challenge in the courts on the part of Corporations, businesses, and class actions of individuals potentially effected would arise overnight on the first view of substantive changes wrought by bureaucratic fiat changing the effect of statute outside of the legislative intent of Congress. Statute severley contols the scope of implementation via bureaucracy to the intent of Congress as expressed by statute and constitutional limits on official authorities.

Doesn't really matter, one court case seeking administrative remedy in the nature of an injuction, and removal of obvious erroneous number and it replacement with proper statistical value is all it takes to put the crunch on your concocted scenario.

Unfortunately, the courts are an inadequate guarantor of liberty. First, the federal government can't be sued unless it gives you permission to sue it, and second (as a practical example), the exact same types of abuses of administrative authority that have occurred in the past have not been able to be corrected through the courts (once again, Bensen's banning of some shotguns is a great example of this failing of the system).

Your scenarios are merely speculative and have little to recomend them or even suggest a rational basis in view of historical processes and modes in the publication and implementation of statute sensitive statistics

Of course the scenario is only speculative; since the particular power (the handouts, not the ability to manipulate the poverty level) being described has not yet been given to the bureaucracy. But if it does, I have no doubt that it will ultimately be abused. Perhaps that makes me paranoid (or more accurately, just pessimistic), but the continual abuse of government power that has been seen in the past is strongly suggestive that any such future powers granted to the bureaucracy will be equally abused if given enough time. I would prefer to simply not give that power to government in the first place, at least not without more significant checks on that power than are already in place or have been proposed.

Now if Congress were to enact such a gross change in methodology to specifcally implement such shenannigans that would be another matter another matter, but we are subject to that right now so your imaginative worries mean nothing through extension onto a new statute. The statutes are subject to legislative change now an can modify the current law to achieve severe magnitude changes in tax law now without risking the least in challenges before the courts

That, too, concerns me, but not as much as placing that power in the hands of an unelected bureaucracy. If provided with the choice, I would certainly prefer to limit government (at the federal level at least) to those items explicitly granted in the Constitution (the enumeration in article 1, secion 8, etc.). But since only I and a few other "tin-foil paranoids" are the only ones who still believe the federal government should be limited that way, I am stuck with accepting the status-quo of Congressional power. But that isn't an excuse for granting a bureaucracy similar unchecked power.