To Our Politicians: Informed Decisions Aren't Necessarily Bad Decisions

There is a disturbing trend among politicians right now: the rejection of information and an overreliance on what Stephen Colbert calls "thinking from the gut." This reared its ugly head in the Fredericksburg mayoral race in the constant assertion of "governing by commission", and was thankfully rejected by the voters. But more recently it presented itself in Congressman Daniel Webster's (R-FL) attack on the American Community Survey. 

For those who don't know, the American Community Survey is a survey taken by the US Government in between Census periods, and collects a variety of data on living conditions, mid-decade migration, and services available in different areas. People can argue whether this is the responsibility of government, and there are valid arguments on both sides, but how Mr. Webster argued against the survey was disturbing and factually incorrect in some cases. Even with these mistakes the amendment passed the House and will likely be debated in the Senate shortly. 

The first argument Mr. Webster made was "We’re spending $70 per person to fill this out. That’s just not cost effective, especially since in the end this is not a scientific survey. It’s a random survey." The American Community Survey randomly does in fact select respondents randomly, as does every scientific survey out there. The math on how this works isn't important for this blog (I'm sure Wikipedia has a great article on the "central limit theorem" for anyone who's interested though), but what is important is that every student at UMW who passes an American Government course, or a Methods in Psychology course, or any other social science or marketing class knows that the American Community Survey qualifies as a random survey. The fact that Mr. Webster does not have the same level of knowledge as a sophomore in college is made even more troubling by the fact that he was able to use that lack of knowledge to eliminate a major governmental program. 

The second argument should be even more disturbing to both sides of the aisle. Mr. Webster asserted that "what really promotes business in this country is liberty, not demand for information." This was soundly rejected by the US Chamber of Commerce, Target, the National Retail Federation, and the National Association of Home Builders, and should be rejected by anyone with common sense. Even the most pro-business person realizes that while liberty is crucial to nurtuing the entrepreneurial spirit, that spirit will ultimately fail without the appropriate information. Without that information, we can expect to see more and more small businesses fail and see that entrepreneurial spirit be even more likely to end in failure.

My college American Government professor told me "All decisions are easy if you have the right information." Mr. Webster's mistakes were twofold: he made a decision without the right information, and because of that he has condemned businesses to be forced to do the same. We should expect more from our politicians, and we should reject those who reject data when they are available simply because those data are uncomfortable or disagree with a pre-determined conclusion.