11 Republican Congressmen Are Sponsoring A Bill That Would End The Jobs Report And The GDP Report

Jeff Duncan

A bill introduced by South Carolina Rep. Jeff Duncan would eliminate all functions of the Census bureau except the part about counting the population every 10 years.

That means no more employment stats, GDP data, housing information — it would all be gone.

Not surprisingly, HR 1638 was instantly slammed as inane at best.

"Cool! Then we might not need congressmen, because just about all of them rely on Census Bureau data to justify their existence," The Census Project Blog's Terri Ann Lowenthal wrote.

"Do they understand that these data that the Census Bureau collects are fundamental to everything else that's done?" HuffPo quoted Maurine Haver, founder Haver Analytics, as saying. "They think the country doesn't need to know how many people are unemployed, either?"

Here's the list of cosponsors:

Rep Chaffetz, Jason — Utah
Rep Harris, Andy — Maryland
Rep Jones, Walter B., Jr. — North Carolina
Rep Labrador, Raul R. — Idaho
Rep Massie, Thomas — Kentucky
Rep Pearce, Stevan — New Mexico
Rep Posey, Bill — Florida
Rep Ribble, Reid J. — Wisconsin
Rep Southerland, Steve II — Florida
Rep Stockman, Steve — Texas

According to HuffPo, Duncan's rep declined to comment.

(Via Dan Primack)