Michael McAuliff — GOP Census Bill Would Eliminate America's Economic Indicators

The crazy gets crazier.

A group of Republicans are cooking up legislation that could give President Barack Obama an unintentional assist with disagreeable unemployment numbers -- by eliminating the key economic statistic altogether....

The bill, introduced last week by Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.), would bar the U.S. Census Bureau from conducting nearly all surveys except for a decennial population count. Such a step that would end the government's ability to provide reliable estimates of the employment rate. Indeed, the government would not be able to produce any of the major economic indices that move markets every month, said multiple statistics experts, who were aghast at the proposal....

"I don't know how the market reacts if there is suddenly no unemployment rate at the start of the month," Prewitt said. "How does the market react if we don't have a GDP [gross domestic product]?"

"Do they understand that these data that the Census Bureau collects are fundamental to everything else that's done?" asked Maurine Haver, founder of business research firm Haver Analytics and a past president of the National Association for Business Economics. 

Haver said she understands that a certain segment of American society distrusts the government and thinks the Census Bureau gathers data as some sort of prelude to dictatorship....

Haver suspects the move to ban data is essentially a sop to the conservative base.

"There are those users of the data, like myself, who say this is so crazy, they just couldn't possibly believe it, so it has to be something they're just throwing out there because they want to be able to cite it in some tea party affair someplace," she said.

Haver also suggested there is a fundamental divide between people who are interested in solid, reality-based data and those who are not.

"If you know what you think, you don't need information to help you assess what's going on," she said.

Like I said, crazy.

The Huffington Post
GOP Census Bill Would Eliminate America's Economic Indicators
Michael McAuliff