GOP Census Bill Would Eliminate America's Economic Indicators

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

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Huffington Post

Wasn't there a similar proposal to this about a year ago?

[Indy Texas]

What is wrong with these people? It seems like they've made a fetish of hating any and all public statistics.

How do they expect businesses to market their products and determine where to locate if they have no information about demographics and economic indicators? Do they think companies that have been relying on public Census data are going to support a law that effectively requires them to spend money themselves on private data collection that won't be as far-reaching or accurate because it will not have the force of law that a government census does?

[Joe Republic]

Come on guys, don't be so harsh.  This is by far the best plan the GOP has come up with to lower the unemployment rate.  All their other ideas would never work of course, but this one lowers it right down to zero!

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Trust me, we probably don't even want to know! They're doing us a favor!

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

What is the GOP's beef with unemployment numbers?

[Franzl]

What is the GOP's beef with unemployment numbers?

Isn't it obvious?

[afleitch]

Collecting statistics is socialism. Except when the Romans do it because you know…Jesus.

[angus]

Wasn't there a similar proposal to this about a year ago?

This is a long-standing goal of the right.  Duncan's cosponsors are libertarian types like Jason Chaffetz, Raul Labrador, Thomas Massie, Steve Stockman and Walter Jones.  I can remember this being discussed for several decades now, mostly on the right.  Libertarians and (Classic Liberal) Republicans bristle at the idea of statistics collections, in general.  It isn't just economic indicators, but would include National Crime Victimization Survey, the American Housing Survey that the Census conducts for HUD, the National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, & Wildlife, the Annual Survey of Jails, and various other data it provides to the Departments of Education, Transportation, Justice, etc.

Mainly, it has to do with the impact on government spending.  The Brookings Institution estimates that $416 billion in federal spending depends on American Community Survey alone.  Almost two-thirds of that is Medicaid spending, which is distributed to states based on per capita income figures computed from this survey.  Also, billions of dollars in highway money, Section 8 housing grants and special education funding rides on this survey.  Absent the survey, how would that $416 billion could be spent?

[greenforest32]

Collecting statistics is socialism.

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/29/gingrich-and-the-destruction-of-congressional-expertise/

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[Torie]

As Duncan notes, in his subsequent press release which is now on the link, the issue is whether the requisite economic data can be gathered in less intrusive ways (without presumably sacrificing in a material way accuracy or quality) then a census survey, that if you refuse to answer, results in a 5K fine potentially.

If there is, then it seems to me that Duncan has the upper hand in the balancing test between the needs for the polity to have the data for policy making purposes, and concerns about individual privacy and the burdens imposed on such individuals.

We seem to be putting up a lot of threads lately where there is more to the story than what the article source (or headline), or the spin placed thereupon here, would imply. I don't bother with most of them, but on this one, I thought I would dig a bit deeper since it all seemed so absurd, as to be implausible.

[DC Al Fine]

As Duncan notes, in his subsequent press release which is now on the link, the issue is whether the requisite economic data can be gathered in less intrusive ways (without presumably sacrificing in a material way accuracy or quality) then a census survey, that if you refuse to answer, results in a 5K fine potentially.

If there is, then it seems to me that Duncan has the upper hand in the balancing test between the needs for the polity to have the data for policy making purposes, and concerns about individual privacy and the burdens imposed on such individuals.

We seem to be putting up a lot of threads lately where there is more to the story than what the article source (or headline), or the spin placed thereupon here, would imply. I don't bother with most of them, but on this one, I thought I would dig a bit deeper since it all seemed so absurd, as to be implausible.

Winning

[Link]

As Duncan notes, in his subsequent press release which is now on the link, the issue is whether the requisite economic data can be gathered in less intrusive ways (without presumably sacrificing in a material way accuracy or quality) then a census survey, that if you refuse to answer, results in a 5K fine potentially.

If there is, then it seems to me that Duncan has the upper hand in the balancing test between the needs for the polity to have the data for policy making purposes, and concerns about individual privacy and the burdens imposed on such individuals.

I have never met anyone who was " burdened" or "fined" because of a simple government survey.  I often wonder where these right wingers live where they have all these issues and need AR-15s to deal with them.  Censuses and government surveys are standard for first world western countries.  They happen all the time without issue.  With all the problems America is facing today how does this jump to the front of the line?

And of course there is this...

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[Torie]

Even if not enforced, if the form says that failure to fill it out is a crime, subject to a 5K fine, that's coercive. If surveys that are voluntary can get data approximately as reliable, then it should be done that way it seems to me.

[Link]

Even if not enforced, if the form says that failure to fill it out is a crime, subject to a 5K fine, that's coercive. If surveys that are voluntary can get data approximately as reliable, then it should be done that way it seems to me.

Maybe, maybe not.  I have never in my life heard anyone say that it is a "burden" or "coercion."  Anyway as a professional there are a myriad of potential fines that are a lot more than 5K that I have to avoid on a daily basis.  If this guy really wanted to avoid coercion on a grand scale he would be trying to legalize marijuana and prostitution.  The deleterious effects of that wide scale coercion are not theoretical.

Torie if that was the ONLY issue with the federal government then I would be willing to hear this guy out.  But given all the fines we professionals face on a day to day basis for absurd things this isn't even a blip on the radar.  And if you talk about the broader public I know of one guy who is serving a life sentence because of marijuana.

Anyway the guy's spokesman's first response was no response.  He may have regrouped and cooked up some half baked answer but we all know this is a big pile of BS.

[Indy Texas]

As Duncan notes, in his subsequent press release which is now on the link, the issue is whether the requisite economic data can be gathered in less intrusive ways (without presumably sacrificing in a material way accuracy or quality) then a census survey, that if you refuse to answer, results in a 5K fine potentially.

If there is, then it seems to me that Duncan has the upper hand in the balancing test between the needs for the polity to have the data for policy making purposes, and concerns about individual privacy and the burdens imposed on such individuals.

We seem to be putting up a lot of threads lately where there is more to the story than what the article source (or headline), or the spin placed thereupon here, would imply. I don't bother with most of them, but on this one, I thought I would dig a bit deeper since it all seemed so absurd, as to be implausible.

The reason Census data is preferable to privately collected data is that the mandatory nature of responding to it eliminates selection bias. When a telemarketer calls houses at random, they're only able to speak to those who are willing to speak to them and complete the interview. The potential for whether or not you respond being correlated with some unobserved factor makes using that data in meaningful ways problematic. It might be good enough to sell Snuggies. It's certainly not good enough to plan multi-billion dollar infrastructure projects or assess the impact of the Affordable Care Act.

The information you give out in the ACS is not "personal." Your name is not being attached to it. People aren't going to look your name up in some database, find out how many toilets you have in your house, where your address is and somehow use that information against you. It gets assigned an observation code and merges into the big sea of data that is incredibly useful to people in both the private and public sectors. I fail to see how that's any more intrusive or burdensome than the information your bank and your credit cards have about you (which is indeed personal).

[Torie]

Good points Lloyd. It may well be that one cannot have their cake and eat it too. But it is an empirical and statistical matter, and that should be determinative. I did not mean to suggest that the burden was unbearable, and should trump everything else. And it is important to get high quality data obviously, so any material sacrifice in that is indeed simply unacceptable.

[pbrower2a]

Come on guys, don't be so harsh.  This is by far the best plan the GOP has come up with to lower the unemployment rate.  All their other ideas would never work of course, but this one lowers it right down to zero!

Why not? They can rely upon rhetoric from duck-speak... I mean right-wing think tanks.... and as we all know canned rhetoric is always more reliable than godless, objective (gasp!) numbers. Don't we all realize (irony intended) that the only appropriate measure of happiness is the satisfaction of American economic elites?