Hi all! First, allow me to introduce myself… my name is Amy Nussbaum, and I am the ASA’s inaugural Science Policy fellow. The ASA board voted last year to create my position in an effort to continue raising the profile of statistics among policy makers and involve newer members of the statistical community in doing so, and I’m proud to be assisting them.
After delays related to gun control deliberations and maneuverings, the Senate is expected to begin in earnest this week its deliberations of the FY17 Commerce, Justice, and Science Appropriations bill which funds the U.S. Census Bureau. Two amendments with serious consequences for the 2020 Census have been proposed already. (Both are outlined in a recent Washington Post piece, “First they came for the facts, and I said nothing…”)
The first amendment, by Senator Deb Fischer (R-NE), proposes cutting Census funding by $148 million. At a time when the Census Bureau is gearing up for the next decennial, either all efforts to modernize the census would be almost completely halted—the Bureau would be forced to use the design from the 2010 Census, which could cost taxpayers an additional $5 billion—or the Bureau would be forced to cut other key surveys, such as the American Community Survey or the 2017 Economic Census. For more talking points, please see the Census Project’s fact sheet, “Why Full Funding Matters.”
The second amendment will be offered by Senator David Vitter (R-LA). This amendment threatens to pull all funding from the Bureau unless questions pertaining to citizenship and/or legal status of U.S. residents are added. Incorporating such questions onto the 2020 Census would have several negative ramifications for the Census, including lowered response rates (and increased cost to tax payers) and logistical challenges (including restarting the research process at additional cost). Adding this question to the Census is not a new issue for Senator Vitter, as he proposed it at least in 2009 and in 2014.
The decennial Census allows Congress to make informed decisions about fair representation and allocation of government funds, which benefits each and every person living in the United States. The ASA urges you to be ready to contact your U.S. Senators in opposition to the two amendments—and any more that may arise—and in full support of the FY17 request for the Census Bureau budget, which is $1.66 billion, a $290 million increase over the FY15 level. (The FY17 budget developments for the federal statistical agencies can be tracked here.)
Following an alert from the Census Project—of which the ASA is a member—other societies have issued their own alerts and/or letters, including the Consortium of Social Science Associations (COSSA) and the Marketing Research Association (Vitter Amendment, Fischer Amendment).