House Republicans Are Tired of Your “Data”

Posted on May 12, 2012 at 5:10 pm by JM Ashby

What better way to manufacture excuses for eliminating social programs than to defund the government agency that tracks local poverty, education, and demographics?

Republicans in the House inexplicably voted this week to defund the American Community Survey (ACS), the nation’s main source of state and local data on affordable housing, household income, poverty, race, state-to-state migration, immigration, education level of the workforce, types of disabilities of local residents, and scores of other major topics.

The federal government uses the data to distribute more than $400 billion in federal formula funds each year, and the information helps communities and businesses decide where to build new roads, bridges, schools, homes, and stores. Business groups including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Retail Federation, International Council of Shopping Centers, and National Association of Home Builders consider the data vital.

The House proposed no alternative to collecting these data.

And as the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities points out, eliminating the ACS would actually increase the cost of the census because the Census Bureau would have to hire additional staff to make up for it.

Something in the Republican brain compels them to be as inefficient and foolhardy as possible. It’s a sight to behold.

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  • muselet

    Kevin Drum:

    [The ACS is] an invaluable source of information about the state of the country, but because it’s conducted by the Census Bureau it’s become a tea party bête noire. They’re convinced that because the Constitution calls for a decennial “enumeration,” then by God, that’s all they can do. They can count heads and nothing more. Anything else is an intolerable invasion of privacy.

    I wonder if these guys have ever actually looked at an old census record? [Steven] Taylor mentions the historical evidence that James Madison himself wanted to count much more than heads and that, in fact, more than a mere count has been done in every census since 1790. What’s more, the government has conducted other, more detailed censuses routinely since the early 19th century.

    Tyranny! Socialism! The Founding Fathers were commies!

    Ashby, you give Republicans too much credit. I see very little evidence of Republican brains.

    –alopecia

    • http://drangedinaz.wordpress.com/ IrishGrrrl

      While I think your point is funny and true in a way….but I think there is a deeper strategy going on. Without this information the federal government will be blind to many of the most important needs of families. And if it is blind those voters needs will go unmet and they will blame the federal government further advancing the narrative that conservatives want people to think that government is the problem and not the answer. They are slowly strangling our federal government but what they refuse to accept that in doing so they are killing our nation. They think there is a disconnect and that the country would easily survive the loss of our federal government but they are horribly, horribly wrong. I refer to this as the GOPs Bleed the Beast strategy.

      • muselet

        Everything you say is true, but I’m not sure about the deeper strategy; it seems more reflexive than considered. Remember, the TPers had a conniption over the 2010 census—the more excitable ones even threatened physical violence against census workers—merely because the information requested went beyond a nose-count.

        Whichever of us is right, this is what happens when people vote for the candidate who hates government the most.

        –alopecia

        • http://drangedinaz.wordpress.com/ IrishGrrrl

          I don’t think much of the TPers….they are simply useful idiots for the GOP machine. But yes, you are absolutely right…the result is the same.

  • agrazingmoose

    This is as sleazy as it gets.

  • http://twitter.com/RouleReport RouleReport

    Could not this information be obtained by the States. ?? If not then where would this information come from, after all — it does seem to be necessary.

    • http://drangedinaz.wordpress.com/ IrishGrrrl

      Well they would agree with you except the states will cry “unfounded mandate” and refuse to do it. The Repubs know this would happen.

  • trgahan

    Hey, I’m just happy the CBO is still around. Since it repeatedly shows things in like the stimulus worked (It Failed!), federal tax revenue is the lowest in decades (We’re being taxes to death!), the deficit is more from tax cuts than spending (Welfare Queens destroyed our economy!), supply side economics is a failure (You’re all just lazy!), etc the Tea Party and faux-Libertarians hate it. I am sure it is marked to defunding, or at least the data is produces being marked as “classified.”