Senator Pat Leahy (D-VT), vice-chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, recently acknowledged the magnitude of the budget challenge facing Congress in funding the Census Bureau.
Speaking on the Senate floor, on February 28, 2019, he warned that, “we face significant cost increases in important programs that we have no control over. For example, we need to increase funding for the decennial Census by $4 billion in order to carry out our constitutional responsibilities to conduct the 2020 Census.”
Census Project stakeholders have met with the Senator’s office and keep in close contact with his staff.
Sen. Leahy urged his colleagues to “begin negotiating a two-year budget deal now to address these realities. We cannot bury our heads in the sand and pretend it will fix itself.”
The Census Project 