HOUSE Republican Leader John Boehner

White House Census Takeover Could Waste Billions in Taxpayer Funds

In a letter sent this afternoon to President Barack Obama, House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) and the entire House Republican leadership team joined Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and other Oversight & Government Reform Committee Republicans in warning that the Administration’s plan to transfer control of the 2010 Census to political operatives on the White House staff could result in billions of taxpayer dollars being abused and misallocated.An estimated $300 billion in taxpayer funding is distributed by the federal government annually on the basis of Census data - data that would be corrupted by partisanship under the current White House plan, GOP leaders warned.Under an Administration plan revealed late last week, control of the traditionally nonpartisan Census Bureau and the 2010 Census would be transferred from the Commerce Department to political operatives on the White House staff, which is headed by the former chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), Rahm Emanuel.

Contrary to Democratic claims, there is no historical precedent for placing the Census under the control of political operatives on the White House staff.  According to former Census Bureau Director Bruce Chapman, who directed the Census Bureau from 1981 to 1983 under President Ronald Reagan: “[T]he White House and its Congressional allies are wrong in asserting that the Census in the past has reported directly to the president through his staff.  Directors of the Bureau often brief presidents and their staffs, but, as a former director (under President Reagan), I don’t know of any cases where the conduct of the Bureau was directly under White House supervision.  That includes Clinton in 2000, Bush 41 in 1990 and Carter in 1980.”

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