Conservatives for Ignorance

The House GOP’s principled–and destructive–war on the long-form census.

Does the government have the right to ask you when you leave for work in the morning? How long it takes you to get home? Whether you have a flush toilet? The answers to these questions are at the heart of an unexpected controversy about a government program most non-wonks have no idea even exists. To supplement the main decennial census, the Census Bureau conducts the annual American Community Survey. The objections to the ACS are a fascinating window on the radicalized post-2008 version Republican Party, a party that’s gone beyond skepticism about the merits of particular government programs to a generalized belief that even the most useful public sector undertakings are an infringement of basic rights.

By Matthew Yglesias

Full Story: http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2012/05/american_community_survey_why_republican_hate_it_.html

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Possible elimination of the American Community Survey and the Economic Census http://matr.net/article-50329.html