Letter to Senate Appropriations Subcommittee Regarding the Economic Programs of the Census Bureau

We have drafted a sample letter which you can use to craft your own personal appeal to fund the Census Bureau at the President’s proposed level. The President’s budget was already austere. We are asking only for sufficient funds to maintain the statistics needed to make informed decisions. While it is easier to send a standard letter, it is clear that letters written in your own words supporting a position receive serious consideration. For more information, see the August 2005 NABE News article .

Below is a list of the subcommittee members and their fax numbers and mailing addresses. Please send your letters by September 1, 2005

 

Sample Letter to Senate Appropriations Subcommittee

The Honorable Richard Shelby
Chairman, Senate Appropriations Subcommittee
on Commerce, Justice, State and the Judiciary
S-206 Capitol
Washington, D.C. 20510

The Honorable Barbara Mikulski
Ranking Member, Senate Appropriations Subcommittee
on Commerce, Justice, State and the Judiciary
S-125 Capitol
Washington, D.C. 20510

Dear Chairman Shelby and Ranking Member Mikulski:

As a member of the National Association for Business Economics (NABE), I strongly urge your support for funding the economic programs at the U.S. Bureau of the Census at the requested support level of $220.0 million. The Senate mark of $183.0 million will eliminate important existing economic statistics programs and much needed new initiatives. Policymakers and businesses will lose many of the current measures they rely on to monitor our rapidly changing economy. In particular, lack of funding to expand measurements of service activity would deprive the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) of new source data to improve measures of GDP. In addition, lack of funding would

• Eliminate the Current Industrial Reports (CIR), a series of 42 different surveys that provide information on 2,000 manufactured products and are used by the Federal Reserve Board (FRB), the BEA, government trade agencies, and trade associations to construct important indices and assess the impact of increased imports on domestic production.
• Suspend the collection of annual sales and inventories data from manufacturers’ sales offices and branches; these firms account for $1.4 trillion in sales and $45 billion in inventories.
• Terminate 2005 Information Communication and Technology supplement to the Annual Capital Expenditures Survey, which provides business expenditures data on hi-tech equipment and software.
• Eliminate annual collection of expenses data from service industry firms, used by BEA and FRB to calculate service industry value-added.

Informed decisions by business leaders and policymakers require accurate and timely economic estimates. I believe this will happen if the programs mentioned above, in particular, are funded. The loss of these economic series will deprive the Bureau of Economic Analysis of critical source data needed for GDP, seriously damaging the National Accounts and other current measures of economic activity.

I understand public money must be spent wisely. The real return to the Nation from more accurate statistics will be in the billions of dollars through better and more informed decisions. I strongly urge your support for these very cost-effective initiatives.

Sincerely,

 

Cc: Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, State and the Judiciary

Senate Appropriations Committee
Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, and Science
Washington, DC 20510

Member	Office	Fax
Chairman Richard Shelby  (R-AL)	S-206 Capitol	202-228-0587
Judd Gregg (R-NH)	393 Russell	202-224-4952
Ted Stevens (R-AK)	522 Hart	202-224-2354
Pete V. Domenici (R-NM)	328 Hart	202-228-3261
Mitch McConnell (R-KY)	361A Russell	202-224-2499
Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-TX)	284 Russell	202-224-0776
Sam Brownback (R-KS)	303 Hart	202-228-1265
Christopher “Kit” Bond (R-MO)	274 Russell	202-224-8149
Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Ranking	S-125 Capitol	202-224-4952
Daniel K. Inouye (D-HI)	722 Hart	no public fax
Patrick Leahy (D-VT)	433 Russell	202-224-3479
Herb Kohl (D-MI)	330 Hart	202-224-9787
Patty Murray (D-WA)	173 Russell	202-224-0238
Tom Harkin (D-IA)	731 Hart	202-224-9369
Byron Dorgan (D-ND)	322 Hart	202-224-1193