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Thursday, May 2nd, 2013

Republican Wants the Party of No Also to be the Party of Know Nothing

Author:     TIMOTHY LANGE
Source:     Daily Kos
Publication Date:     Wed May 01, 2013 at 11:12 AM PDT
 Link: Republican Wants the Party of No Also to be the Party of Know Nothing
Stephan:   You think I am kidding or exaggerating about the Theocratic Right's drive to defund social science, and eliminate fact based policy? Try this on then. There are so many of these stories I could do whole editions of SR daily for many days just with reports like this one. The Democrats often disappoint me, but the Republican Party is becoming a menace to our national wellbeing.

Rep. Jeff Duncan has a plan to help us cope with information overload. His H. R. 1638 would simply eliminate all the data collection that the U.S. Census Bureau does except for the decennial population count. In particular, it would do away with the American Community Survey that has been undertaken in some form since a guy named Thomas Jefferson was president. (And along with it the Economic Census, the Census of Governments, the Census of Agriculture, the mid-decade Census and other information-gathering not explicitly stated in the Constitution.) The House of Representatives voted last year 232-190 to dump the ACS, but the proposal failed to gain traction in the Senate. That probably will be its fate this year as well.

Together with the Census itself, the American Community Survey used to be done every 10 years, with one of out six Americans required to fill out the ‘long form.’ But, as a cost-saving measure, President George W. Bush switched it to a annual survey of one in 38 households. Advantages: cheaper and more up-to-date. The problem, according to Republicans like Duncan (as well Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Ted Poe of Texas who want it to be optional), […]

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