House Votes to Eliminate U.S. Census

I’ll tell you, for a bunch of Constitution-loving folk that Republicans claim to be, they sure have a funny, twisted way of showing it. In another show of right-wing, anti-country tomfoolery and time wasting, the House voted on Wednesday to eliminate the U.S. Census. The measure passed by a 232-190 margin. And what was their reason for doing such a thing?

“This survey is inappropriate for taxpayer dollars. It’s the definition of a breach of personal privacy. It’s the picture of what’s wrong in Washington, D.C. It’s unconstitutional.”
~Rep. Daniel Webster (R-FL)

Come on, Republicans, this is getting laughable. Your cries of “invasion of privacy” are beyond a joke, considering that you have made it clear that peoples’ private lives are your one and only order of business. I mean, you’d like to shove a trans-vaginal wand up every woman’s hoo-ha, you’re disturbingly obsessed with gay peoples’ sex lives, and you want to *itch and moan about privacy? Give me a break.

The U.S. Census is a necessary tool of government, and has been in place since 1790 when then Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson (yes, that Thomas Jefferson), implemented it as a means to allocate Congressional seats, electoral votes and government funding. It is mandated by the U.S. Constitution under Article 1, Section 2:

The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct.

Of course, the Constitution is only applicable when it suits their purposes, and they’ll whip it out and club people over the head like a baby seal with it. But this bill was sponsored by the tin-foil-hat brigade, of which Webster is a card-carrying member, as is every other Republican in Congress.

Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-PA) was more than a little irked:

“We’ve been doing surveys in the long form since 1790 as a nation. It’s critically important. The idea that we’re going to leave the greatest country in the world with less information about the condition of communities and of our families – and that we’re going to do that appropriately – defies logic.”

Actually, it doesn’t, because there’s not an ounce of logic left in the Republican Party. As an aside, the Constitution also provides a mandate for the postal service under Article 1, Section 8, Clause 7:

Clause 7: To establish Post Offices and post Roads

And we all know how Republicans feel about that…