Economists need data
Angus Deaton, this year's winner of the Nobel in economic science, was honored for his rigorous and innovative use of data -- including the collection and use of new surveys on individuals' choices and behaviors -- to measure living standards and guide policy.
House Republicans, for example, have been especially scornful of the decennial census, the nation's most important statistical tool, and the related questionnaire, the American Community Survey. They have placed prohibitive constraints on the Census Bureau, including a mandate that it spend no more on the 2020 census than it spent on the 2010 census, despite inflation, population growth and technological change.