Automate All The Things

[andersonfrailey]

This PR contributes two new bits of automation.

First, it finishes automating CBO updates. I'm going to continue working on it a bit more to try and automatically update documentation as well.

Second, it automatically generates reports detailing changes to TaxData. The new reports.py file will look for variables that are added/removed from both the PUF and CPS, compare CBO projections and growth factors between the master branch and whatever the current branch you're working on is, and finally compare taxcalc projections using the CPS file. It's still a work in progress, but I've attached a sample report for feedback. I'm still deciding how to best make comparisons using the PUF.

Sample usage is:

python report.py "1,2,3" --desc sample.txt

"1,2,3" is a list of PRs that have gone been/will be merged whose changes are reflected in the report. This could also be used to point to issues that are addressed. I'll update the language in the report to reflect that before my next commit.
--desc sample.txt is an optional path to a text/markdown file with additional information to be included at the start of the report. In the file used to create the sample report, sample.txt just contained the line:

This is a bunch of additional information

I'm interested in hearing what people think of the report and what they'd like to see added/removed. The purpose of all this is so that contributors have an easy way of showing how their changes affect our datasets and taxcalc projections as well as to create a history that's easier to refer back on than digging through a bunch of PR's would be.

taxdata_report_2020-08-02.pdf

[andersonfrailey]

Latest commit finishes the automation process. Now updatecbo.py will check each of the sites we pull data from to see if there is anything new and update (or not update) CBO_baseline.csv and the documentation automatically. I've noted this in the code, but the March 2020 CBO revenue projections do not include capital gains realizations. It's unclear if that's a permanent change or just for this specific file. We'll need to re-evaluate when they release a new update, but for now we just skip over that update.

[andersonfrailey]

I'll leave this open for another day or two and if there are no comments I'll merge.

[andersonfrailey]

If there are no objections, I'll merge this at COB today.