No, I didn't make this up...

The New York Times is reporting (see here) that House Republicans have passed a bill (sponsored by Daniel Webster, R, Florida) that would eliminate the government survey known as the American Community Survey - one of the most important information gathering instruments of the entire U.S. government.  It provides us with some of the most useful information we have about our nation.  And what was Mr. Webster's argument for eliminating it.  No, I'm not making this up.  He said:

“This is a program that intrudes on people’s lives, just like the Environmental Protection Agency or the bank regulators,”  and “We’re spending $70 per person to fill this out. That’s just not cost effective,” he continued, “especially since in the end this is not a scientific survey. It’s a random survey.” 

So we have an elected member of the House who wants to eliminate work done by a very accomplished group of economists and statisticians and his basic argument is that it isn't scientific because its random.  Never-mind that the first requirement of a "scientific survey" is that it protects against bias by using randomness.  Help, somebody....anybody.