According to the GOP, the American Community Survey is intrusive, but transvaginal ultrasounds are not...
Rarely does a day go by where the Republican Party doesn't showcase they're living in la-la land. Nothing may illustrate this point more than a bill introduced by South Carolina Representative Jeff Duncan last week, which would all but do away with the U.S. Census Bureau.
More specifically, this bill would only allow the U.S. Census Bureau to conduct surveys for a decennial population count. All other surveys would be barred. Of course, this bill hardly has any chance of passing both the House and the Senate, let alone getting signed by President Obama. To even propose such a bill, though, is a big bowl of Looney Tunes with two sides of nuts.
Former director of the U.S. Census and current professor of public affairs at Columbia University - Ken Prewitt - said the following about the proposed bill - "They simply wouldn't exist. We won't have an employment rate. I don't know how the market reacts if there is suddenly no unemployment rate at the start of the month. How does the market react if we don't have a GDP [gross domestic product]?"
He added:
"It's so unimaginable. It would be like saying we don't need policemen anymore, we don't need firemen anymore. To say suddenly we don't need statistical information about the American economy, or American society, or American demography, or American trade, or whatever -- it's an Alice in Wonderland moment."
John Sides, a professor of political science at George Washington University, made his voice heard about the bill as well, saying:
"This learning is valuable in so many ways -- in terms of helping the government allocate resources, allowing researchers to deepen our understanding of our social and cultural life, allowing business to make decisions about how to target customers and thereby become more profitable, and so on."
Maurine Haver, founder of business research firm Haver Analytics and a past president of the National Association for Business Economics, also weighed in on the matter, saying:
"Do they understand that these data that the Census Bureau collects are fundamental to everything else that's done? They think the country doesn't need to know how many people are unemployed, either?"
She added:
"If you know what you think, you don't need information to help you assess what's going on. The people that need information are the people who use it because they really want the truth, not people who think that because they believe it, it becomes truth."
Why is Jeff Duncan proposing such an outrageous bill? It appears to strike down the ACS (American Community Survey), which some constituents supposedly described as being "overly intrusive." Of course, if Duncan and other Republican Congressmen were asked about transvaginal ultrasounds and whether or not they were intrusive, they'd likely respond with, "Not for us or any of our constituents, so what do we care? What's a transvagina anyway? Our wives don't have those, do they?" Like I said, la-la land...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/01/gop-census-bill_n_3188043.html
More specifically, this bill would only allow the U.S. Census Bureau to conduct surveys for a decennial population count. All other surveys would be barred. Of course, this bill hardly has any chance of passing both the House and the Senate, let alone getting signed by President Obama. To even propose such a bill, though, is a big bowl of Looney Tunes with two sides of nuts.
Former director of the U.S. Census and current professor of public affairs at Columbia University - Ken Prewitt - said the following about the proposed bill - "They simply wouldn't exist. We won't have an employment rate. I don't know how the market reacts if there is suddenly no unemployment rate at the start of the month. How does the market react if we don't have a GDP [gross domestic product]?"
He added:
"It's so unimaginable. It would be like saying we don't need policemen anymore, we don't need firemen anymore. To say suddenly we don't need statistical information about the American economy, or American society, or American demography, or American trade, or whatever -- it's an Alice in Wonderland moment."
John Sides, a professor of political science at George Washington University, made his voice heard about the bill as well, saying:
"This learning is valuable in so many ways -- in terms of helping the government allocate resources, allowing researchers to deepen our understanding of our social and cultural life, allowing business to make decisions about how to target customers and thereby become more profitable, and so on."
Maurine Haver, founder of business research firm Haver Analytics and a past president of the National Association for Business Economics, also weighed in on the matter, saying:
"Do they understand that these data that the Census Bureau collects are fundamental to everything else that's done? They think the country doesn't need to know how many people are unemployed, either?"
She added:
"If you know what you think, you don't need information to help you assess what's going on. The people that need information are the people who use it because they really want the truth, not people who think that because they believe it, it becomes truth."
Why is Jeff Duncan proposing such an outrageous bill? It appears to strike down the ACS (American Community Survey), which some constituents supposedly described as being "overly intrusive." Of course, if Duncan and other Republican Congressmen were asked about transvaginal ultrasounds and whether or not they were intrusive, they'd likely respond with, "Not for us or any of our constituents, so what do we care? What's a transvagina anyway? Our wives don't have those, do they?" Like I said, la-la land...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/01/gop-census-bill_n_3188043.html
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