Like most data people, I prefer order and logic. So it was a huge shock when I joined a federal budget research organization and started learning about the orderly and logical process by which the U.S. government creates an annual budget. An orderly and logical process that Congress mostly disregards.
Really, the whole politicized debacle offends my sensibilities as a citizen and as a data professional.
Furthermore, the recent zeal for budget cuts has resulted in budget cuts that affect our ability to make smart budget cuts. Specifically, I’m talking about attacks on government-created statistical data—data that’s* used by lawmakers, social service organizations, and businesses to make decisions and allocate increasingly-scarce resources.
Two examples I’ve written about recently:
- Is Federal Spending Transparency on the Decline?: a guest post for the Sunlight Foundation’s blog about the demise of the Consolidated Federal Funds Report and why that makes it harder to understand federal spending.
- American Community Survey Under Attack: the House recently passed a spending bill that prohibits the Department of Commerce from funding the American Community Survey (ACS). The yearly ACS replaced the decennial census long-form questionnaire, and its data helps* state and local governments determine how to distribute funds, among other things. See here, here, and here for more information about the widespread usefulness of the ACS.
Of course, order and logic sometimes need to be tempered with a dose of pragmatism. But when our governing body is governed almost entirely by short-term thinking, we should think about not electing them again.
