Donald Trump’s firing of James Comey overshadowed just about everything else on Tuesday, but it’s worth noting that another high-ranking government official announced his own departure the same day. John Thompson, the director of the U.S. Census Bureau, will retire on June 30, leaving an agency in the middle of a serious funding struggle.
The decennial count typically requires a massive ramp-up in spending in the years immediately preceding it, involving extensive testing, hiring and publicity. However, in late April Congress approved only $1.47 billion for the Census Bureau in the 2017 fiscal year, about 10 percent below what the Obama administration had requested. And experts say the White House’s proposed budget for 2018, $1.5 billion, falls far below what is needed. [...]
A former Capitol Hill staffer who is knowledgeable about the census said Congress’s mandate for the 2020 Census to cost no more than the 2010 one was unrealistic.
“They’re not accounting for inflation; they’re not accounting for the 30 million more Americans, for the fact that people don’t have hard [telephone] lines anymore. And you’re going to do the census for the same amount of money? That’s not possible.”
The census doesn’t just give us a picture of what the United States population looks like—who we are—it also tells us where people are. And that has political implications, since the population of the states determines how many House seats they get. Redistricting is done by the states and determines where the lines of those House districts are drawn, but the census determines reapportionment, the movement of, for instance, a House seat from Michigan to Texas or from Pennsylvania to Florida. It would be nice to have adequate funding and someone competent in charge, but unfortunately, Republicans control government these days.