BUSH TO ALTER ECONOMIC STATS AGAIN

I] More of the Bush administrations subtrafuge. Or how to fudge the numbers and turn a negative into a positive[/I].
BUSH TO ALTER ECONOMIC STATS AGAIN

Last week, the Census Bureau released statistics showing that for the first
time in years, poverty had increased for three straight years, while the
number of Americans without health care increased to a record level.[1] But
instead of changing its economic and health care policies, the Bush
administration today is announcing plans to change the way the statistics
are compiled. The move is just the latest in a series of actions by the
White House to doctor or eliminate longstanding and nonpartisan economic
data collection methods.

In a Bush administration press release yesterday, the Census Bureau said
next week it "will announce a new economic indicator" as "an additional tool
to better understand" the economy. The change in statistics is being
directed by Bush political appointees and comes just 60 days from the
election. It will be the first modification of Census data in 40 years.[2]

This is not the first time the White House has tried to doctor or manipulate
economic data that exposed President Bush's failed policies. In the face of
serious job losses last year, the Associated Press reported "the Bush
administration has dropped the government's monthly report on mass layoffs,
which also had been eliminated when President Bush's father was in
office."[3] Similarly, Business Week reported that the White House this year
"unilaterally changed the start date of the last recession to benefit Bush's
reelection bid." For almost 75 years, the start and end dates of recessions
have been set by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), a private
nonpartisan research group. But the Bush administration decided to toss
aside the NBER, and simply declare that the recession started under
President Clinton.[4]


Sources:

1. "Census: Poverty up in 2003," The Olympian, 9/01/04,
http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=3382691&l=52819.
2. Census Bureau press release, 8/31/04.
3. "Monthly report on mass layoffs dropped," Shawnee News-Star, 1/05/03,
http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=3382691&l=52820.
4. "Inventing The 'Clinton Recession'," Business Week Online, 2/23/04,
http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=3382691&l=52821