“Congress has got to step up and fund what they have been insisting on for so many years,” observed Tom Temin of the Federal News Network, in an interview on November 5, 2019 with Census Project co-director Howard Fienberg.
While operating on a continuing resolution is “doable for a lot of parts of the Federal government,” Fienberg commented that the decennial census doesn’t operate the same way, “and it is something that is on a timetable that is extremely strict and rigid,” having been set out that way for decades. “It is required by the Constitution, and law requires that it be done by a certain date.”
The Census Project recently urged Congress to “provide full-year funding for the 2020 Census as soon as possible, whether as part of a package of final spending bills, or in a new Continuing Resolution.”
Fienberg continued: “If you screw up along the way, because you don’t have enough money… you’re going to get an incomplete and inaccurate census.”
Listen to the full interview on the Federal News Network.
The Census Project 