Document:New York Erie County Press Release 31 July 2020 Early End to Census Door Knocking a Win for Libertarians

Early End to Census Door Knocking a Win for Libertarians

Less New Yorkers counted in census means less pro-big government influence in Washington

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Duane Whitmer | DuaneWhitmer@yahoo.com | (716) 353-5505

July 31, 2020 – BUFFALO, N.Y. – The Census Bureau plans to scale back the amount of time it will spend knocking on doors across the country by one month, NPR reports. In April, the Bureau argued it would need until late October to develop an accurate count of all the people in the country given delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, the Census Bureau’s door knocking initiative will end Sept. 30, according to three Census Bureau employees who spoke with NPR. This has pro-big government progressives in New York State aghast at the prospect of receiving a smaller welfare payment composed of fiat currency from the federal printing press once this year’s census concludes.

“An early end to census door knocking in New York State is a win for Libertarians across the country,” Erie County Libertarian Party Chair Duane Whitmer said. “New York presently has 27 Congressional representatives. 21 are Democrats and just six are Republicans, but all of them universally support progressive big government and state compulsion as the only acceptable answers to every societal challenge. Not one active New York Congressional representative has ever done a single thing to expand individual liberty or restrict the growth of centralized government. If undercounting New Yorkers in the 2020 census means less New York politicians wielding influence in Washington, D.C., that’s a good thing for Libertarians across the country, and a positive outcome for the nation as a whole. I say this as an active Congressional candidate in NY-27, and would support the elimination of the NY-27 seat and any other New York Congressional seat if it meant more individual liberty for Americans.”

The data collected by the census determine the number of seats New York and the 49 other U.S. states receive in the House of Representatives. The data are also used to distribute billions in federal funds to numerous localities across the nation. Between the large volumes of people fleeing New York State amid the ongoing reign of Andrew Cuomo’s COVID-19 authoritarian fiefdom and the inability of census takers to obtain an accurate count of residents, it appears highly likely that New York State will loose one or more Congressional seats in the near future and receive less federal funding for government programs.

Less New Yorker representation in the 2020 census will be positive from two vantage points:

1.) There will be less left-wing, pro-big government influence from New York in Washington.

2.) Because federal funding to New York will recede and due to the fact that the state government is essentially bankrupt, localities throughout New York will need to improvise voluntary solutions to societal challenges that do not rely on forced theft of individual wealth by government agents.

Together, these outcomes reduce the abusive interference of government in citizens’ daily lives and increase individual liberty.

The Erie County Libertarian Party acknowledges that Congress is empowered to carry out the census per Article I, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution. However, the Constitution does not directly authorize Congress to compel Americans to speak to census takers in order to compile an ‘accurate’ census. That type of unconstitutional, compelled speech is authorized by Title 13 of the U.S. Code, which is the construct of self-serving government bureaucrats, not the nation’s Founders themselves.

As a form of political protest of the anti-liberty policies promulgated by their own state representatives, the Erie County Libertarian Party believes New Yorkers should not be compelled to respond to census takers, nor should they be penalized in any way for non-responsiveness. The party also points out that no one has been prosecuted for failing to respond to a census survey since 1970.

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The Erie County Libertarian Party is committed to America’s heritage of freedom: individual liberty and personal responsibility, a free-market economy of abundance and prosperity, a foreign policy of non-intervention, peace, and free trade.