The right wing demagogues have won or should I say the Obama Whitehouse has capitulated and this is the last year for the Statistical Abstract of the United States as well as the American Census bureau having decided to shut six of its 12 regional centers at an eventual annual saving of $15 million to $18 million. For those of you who like economic data and government openness, this is a tragedy and another step on the road to the elite takeover of society. This has been expected and from the Huffpo in July:
The Appropriations Committee was aiming for an overall 6 percent cut to the Commerce, Justice and Science budget and hoping to boost some functions at the FBI, the Patent Office and trade agencies; it decided to whack the Census Bureau disproportionately. President Obama's proposal already sought to cut the bureau's budget from $1.15 billion to $1.02 billion. But the appropriators decided on $855 million, meaning an additional $169 million in cuts would have to be made. The result would be a loss of $294 million, or 25 percent of the agency's current budget.
An example of how the GOP feels about it:
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) famously declared she would not fill out her 2010 Census form, even though doing so is required by the Constitution and law. Bachmann even raised the specter of the World War II-era Japanese interment camps to argue against the Census.
Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas) has sponsored legislation with Bachmann to make the American Community Survey voluntary instead of a requirement, calling it "Big Brother at its worst."
This is similar to the situation in Canada where the Conservative government made the truncated version of the long census form voluntary. If the census data doesn’t support the presumptions on which you base your policies then get rid of the census.
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