Census Survey Asks Too Much, Republicans Party Says

The Republican National Committee is demanding that the Census Bureau stop being so nosy, or at least stop requiring that Americans comply.

The Republican Party isn't taking on the census itself, the count of the United States population made every 10 years, but the more comprehensive American Community Survey. Conducted annually by the bureau, the survey replaced the long version of the census form. It is sent to millions of American homes to collect information on income, education, mortgage debt, marital status, race, religion and more. Burton Reist, a bureau official, said Thursday that it is the nation's "official statistical portrait," used by governments to allocate resources, by businesses to make labor force and investment decisions, and in the distribution of federal money. The Republican Party that the Census Bureau behaves "exactly as a scam artist would, asking very personal questions," and called the survey "a dangerous invasion of privacy," and "overreaching and intimidating." The Republican National Committee said the Census Bureau was "spending millions of tax dollars to violate the rights and invade the personal privacy of United States citizens."