[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 109 (Wednesday, August 5, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H7183-H7184]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              2000 CENSUS

  (Mr. EWING asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. EWING. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask a simple question: Why 
would the President want to shut down the government over the census? 
He once said, ``It is deeply wrong to shut down the government while we 
negotiate.'' Now he says he will veto a bill that would in fact close 
down the FBI, close down the courts, and bring home the Border Patrol 
unless Congress gives him his plan for the 2000 census. That plan is 
one to be done by polling, not counting individual citizens. We all 
know the margin of error in polling.
  Mr. Speaker, the Republican Congress wants to save the 2000 census. 
The GAO and the Commerce Department's own Inspectors General have

[[Page H7184]]

warned that we are headed toward a failure in the census. We believe 
that before America spends $4 billion on the census done by polling, we 
should find a way to do it the way we have for 200 years, by counting 
each American.

                          ____________________