The poverty data Bush doesn't want you to see

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com...es/002414.html


The Wall Street Journal reported last week that the Census Bureau will
release government data on the poverty rate tomorrow. Not
surprisingly, after years of progress on moving American families out
of poverty in the 1990s, the Bureau's data is expected to show another
increase under Bush.

That's the predictable part. The suspicious part has to do with the
timing of the announcement.

Every year, the Census Bureau releases the poverty data in
late-September. In election years, that means the public learns about
the number of families in poverty about five weeks before going to the
polls. This year -- surprise, surprise -- the announcement has been
moved up to August, when Congress is out of session, a lot of
journalists are on vacation, and the Olympics are on TV. The Wall
Street Journal reported:

A bureau representative says the date change has nothing to do with
politics.

No, of course not, what ever could have given us that idea?

Indeed, it's not suspicious at all that the Census Bureau changed the
date and the location of the announcement to a harder-to-reach office.
Instead of using the traditional National Press Club in downtown DC,
where the numbers have been released in years past, the poverty data
announcement will be made from Census Bureau offices in Suitland, Md.,
far from reporters' offices.

And adding insult to injury, we're not supposed to be the slightest
bit skeptical about the fact that every year, the numbers have been
released by a career Census official -- until this year, when the data
will be announced by the bureau's director, a political appointee of
the Bush White House.

While Congressional Democrats emphasize that the director, Charles
Kincannon, has always treated them fairly and honestly, the change
added to the feeling that some kind of hijinks was going on.

"A political appointee should not be delivering such a significant
statistic, because it opens the Census Bureau to charges of spinning
statistics for political purposes," said Rep. Carolyn Maloney
(D-N.Y.).

Given the circumstances, it's easy to forgive the Dems for being a
little cynical.

"I don't put anything past this administration," said Rep. William
Lacy Clay (D-Mo.), the ranking member on the Government Relations
subcommittee on technology, information policy, intergovernmental
relations and the Census. "These people will stoop to any level to
accomplish their goals -- and right now that goal is to re-elect
Bush."

The data will be available, quietly or not, tomorrow afternoon [fri
8/26]. We'll see how much attention it gets and whether the
administration's scheme worked.