Fischer Amendment to FY17 CJS Bill: Census Funding Cut

In response to a proposed Senate floor amendment that would cut Census Bureau funding, MRA sent the following letter to Senators:

On behalf of the Marketing Research Association (MRA), I urge you to oppose amendment #4711 from Senator Deb Fischer (R-NE) to the Fiscal Year 2017 Commerce, Justice, Science (CJS) Appropriations bill (S. 2837). It would cut the funding for Census Bureauprograms by $148 million and imperil the necessary ramp up for the 2020 Census.

The proposed cut in funding (effectively returning to FY16 levels) would make it extremely difficult to execute the final testing and key design decisions necessary in FY17 in order to pull off an accurate and cost-effective decennial headcount. The reduction in funding could force the Census Bureau to abandon most plans to modernize the 2020 Census and fall back onto the tried-and-true option of a paper-and-pencil survey with no advanced IT or infrastructure, at an additional cost of more than $5 billion. The Bureau might otherwise be forced to eliminate the American Community Survey (ACS) or the 2017 Economic Census in order to find enough money to prepare for the decennial.

The requested FY17 funding for the 2020 Census will help advance the required IT development upgrades and operation preparations (such as electronic collection and processing of responses), and design upgrades (such as the use of administrative records to update addresses and reduce costly non-response follow-up). The 2020 Census will require counting roughly 334 million people across the U.S. (and Americans overseas) by April 1. It cannot be delayed or re-run.

The ACS (the rolling survey that replaced the old Census long form, sent to 3.5 million addresses every year) determines the allocation of more than $400 billion a year in federal assistance — more than 2/3 of all federal grant funding. The ACS is America’s only source for comparable (across geography), consistent (across time), timely (updated annually), and high-quality demographic and socio-economic data for all communities, down to the neighborhood and census tract levels (so you can accurately compare downtown New York with rural Kentucky).

Full funding of the Census Bureau budget is a key policy priority for survey, opinion and marketing researchers. Accurate data from the decennial Census and the ACS are essential to producing any statistically representative studies in the United States. These programs are also central to promoting economic growth, guiding the prudent allocation of public and private resources, and sustaining a strong democracy. Most importantly, the decennial Census and the ACS are among the few functions of the federal government required by the U.S. Constitution (Article I, sec. 2, clause 3).

Please oppose the Fischer amendment (#4711) and any others that could inhibit the ability of the Census Bureau to execute its Constitutional responsibilities: the ACS and the decennial headcount.

See the pdf of the letter.

— Originally published at MARKETINGRESEARCH.ORG on June 16, 2016.