Headlights Off, Driving in the Dark

Canada pretty much destroyed the long form of its household census by making response optional. The response rate has plummeted, and cities now find themselves without the data they need to make policy decisions.

Friend Nolan Miller informs me that legislation was recently introduced in the US Senate that would eliminate all federal data collection except the constitutionally-mandated, decennial head count. Unemployment rate? GDP growth? Nah, who needs to know?